Will the Pokemorph
by Stolloss
Summary: Will is your average 13-year old, albeit a little rash and forgetful. At least, he is until he goes to get his first pokemon. Then everything goes wrong. On indefinite hiatus, unfortunately.
1. Introduction

After looking over what I had written (and a certain review), a lot of the stuff I put in the first two chapters really didn't do anything for the main plot, it was just more to read. Therefore, chapters one and two have been rewritten and combined. Parts of this were written from scratch, other parts were edited, and still others were simply copied and pasted over. If you've already read the first two chapters, feel free to skip this; you're not missing anything. If not, you now have less to read before the exciting part. Enjoy.

Oh yeah. "Speech is in quotes," _and thoughts are italicized._

I'm saying this once (unless I end up rewriting this again): I don't own pokemon. There, disclaimer done.

* * *

"Will, if you don't get out of bed, you'll be late for school!"

_That's bad how?_

I stumbled over to my dresser, still half-asleep. I didn't know why I still had to go to school. Everything they taught was either useless or a repetition of what they already taught. I was ten. Lucas, my older brother, had left to go on his journey with his pokémon when he was ten. Most of the other kids in my grade had pokémon, even if they hadn't left yet.

After putting on some jeans and a red sweatshirt, I went downstairs to the kitchen. "Mom, I think I should start getting ready to leave on my pokémon journey soon. I am as old as Lucas was when he left."

Mom sighed. "Will, we've been over this. You aren't ready yet. Your brother left earlier than he should have. You still have a few years of school left before you can go off on your own."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Mom raised a hand to silence me. "However, your father and I have decided that you are ready to raise your own pokémon. Evan's donphan, over in Oreburgh City, has given birth to an unexpectedly large litter. We have talked to her, and when they are ready to leave their mother, she will let you raise one here in Jubilife."

I stood there in surprise, my mouth hanging open. I saw my mom's mouth twitch upwards, a sign that she was about to laugh, probably at my expression. I closed my mouth, grinned, and asked, "When… When do I get to choose?"

"We're going to go over when you get home from school today to see them. They won't be ready to leave their mother for a while, but you should get to know them and they should get to know you before then. Keep in mind that if you get in trouble at school, we can make you wait longer."

"Don't worry about that! I'll be great in school. Thanks so much!"

I ran over and hugged her, nearly tripping over Kokodo in the process. Kokodo was my mom's lairon. She slept in the basement because she preferred the cold concrete to a bed. That and whenever she slept in a bed, it was cut to pieces by the morning by her armor.

"Hey, this was a group decision. Where's my hug?" Father walked over and grabbed me in a hug. "Now get ready for school. You don't want to stay late today, do you?"

"No way!" I began running around the house gathering my school supplies, making sure I didn't forget anything, even if I didn't think I would need it. I had to make sure I had no problems between now and that day when I would bring a phanpy home! I nearly ran out the door without eating breakfast, only remembering as mom stopped me in front of the door with a muffin in her hand. Red-faced, I thanked her and ran towards the trainer's school a few blocks down, getting through the door with plenty of time to spare.

"That kid would forget his head if it wasn't attached to his shoulders."

Jessica laughed. "That's all? He's going to need to learn a lot more before he leaves. Lucas wasn't this forgetful, and I still think his decision to leave was a little rushed."

"Yeah, but he's been doing all right. He's over in Pastoria, but I hope he stays away from that swamp. It's dangerous. Look," he said, holding up the day's newspaper, "they just found out that a 14th person disappeared in that swamp. There haven't been any issues with the swamp before, but now people are disappearing left and right. The marsh and Route 212 will probably be closed for months while they figure out where they're all going."

"I know he's adventurous, but he's not stupid. He'll be safe. I hope he comes home soon. It's been a little over a year now, and a phone call just doesn't seem like enough sometimes."

* * *

_Why did I sell them that formula? The project was being shut down, I hated it, and I got myself back into it. I don't know if it was an attempt to get something out of it, or if I was just crazy. I thought it was over when I left the company and moved._

It was never over. He had started a new job only to discover that he was now working for the company he sold the results of a failed project to, and he had no idea why. They had given him several small side projects to work on, and he recognized them as all subtly working on the formula he had sold them. When he brought it up with his manager, they dropped the façade and explicitly told him what would happen if he did not make it work.

His cell phone beeped. Somebody wanted to talk to him, and it was never anything good. He sighed, and checked the room number that had been sent. C3D78.

_That's in the executive offices. Shit, something's gone really wrong if they want me up there._

He walked up the stairs, past the security guards, and stopped to have his ID checked. Then he continued up another flight of stairs, past a row of cages that he didn't dare to look at, and into the row of executive offices. The hallway was strangely empty except for several boxes stacked neatly by the far wall, and he noticed that several of the desks had all their contents removed. It seemed that somebody was moving out.

"In here, David." The voice came from one of the darkened rooms nearby, the kind with the tinted glass that makes you feel as if somebody is staring through at you, unseen. David gulped and walked in.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" This was one of the few people David saw regularly in the office. Everyone else either blended together with their uniforms, or was only seen once looking at him as he worked. This man was his supervisor, and often asked what progress had been made, and when results could be expected. There was nothing wrong with the words he said, but the icy tone in which he said them gave him the image of cold distance from everything around him.

"Yes. Your last test results were phenomenal, and we would like to move forward to the next test phase."

_Phenomenal? Sure, all the models showed a successful transformation, but wasn't survival an important aspect as well? The experiment had a 17% survival rate, and that was assuming everything went perfectly! Surely they can't mean to start using this on live subjects! This isn't the kind of thing you can test on rats and guinea pigs; it was designed specifically to work on humans, and only on humans. They want to start testing with a 17 percent survival rate? Who is going to volunteer for that?_

"Sir, I'm not sure what you mean. The next phase involves testing on actual humans, and with the predicted survival rate, it will kill more people than it transforms! And don't we need a way to reverse it before we begin-"

"That is already taken care of. We have reason to suspect that our test subjects will show a much higher survival rate than predicted, due to several factors not previously taken into consideration. Reversing the transformation is not a priority."

_What factors? I got similar results across the board, taking into consideration all ethnic groups, health conditions, and even artificial life support. No mature body can support that kind of transformation. And he can't be thinking of testing this on anyone whose body is still in a state of change, can he? That would require that our subjects be…_

"Sir, you … you can't be thinking of testing this on… on children… are you?"

"Of course we are. Someone already changing, however slightly, has a much higher rate of survival than an adult whose body has accepted that it will not change anymore."

_Children! They're going to test it on children! Are they out of their minds, that's the most horrible thing they can do! Even if the children volunteer, and TG doesn't seem like the type to take no for an answer when they decide who they want, that's wrong! If I'm sending children to their death…_

"What… what… what kind of survival rate are we talking about here?"

"Around 45 percent. We are ready to move all your work over to facilities more capable of this kind of testing, and we would like you to join us there. Of course, the offer we gave you when you first found out who we are still stands if you decide not to."

* * *

I turned and looked around again. There was still no sign of Oreburgh.

Why did I just go running off? Everyone always tells me to think things through, and I never listen. Now I'm lost in these woods.

From the sun, I could guess that there were only a few hours of light left. The thought that I might still be here when night came was frightening. I groaned and laid down. No wonder I wasn't allowed to leave yet; I'd probably never make it to a single town! I closed my eyes and went over what I had done that day to see if anything I remembered could help.

_After school, my mom, Kokodo, and I went over to Evan's house to look at the phanpy. While I was playing with them, one of them ran outside. I ran after it. It went into the forest, and I followed it. I lost sight of it then. After a bit of running, I decided there was no way I was following it and headed back. Well, where I thought was back. A few minutes of running shot down that idea. I've been wandering around these woods ever since, with no luck. The only thing I found was a burnt building, which I've never heard anything about._

I couldn't remember anything helpful, such as whether the sun was in front of or behind me when I ran into the forest. I knew my way around the woods back near Jubilife, but not here.

I got up and looked around again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the sunlight reflecting off of something. Thinking it might be the corner of a building, I ran over to it.

As it slowly came in view, I realized I was right; it was a building, but not one I had ever seen before. It was two stories high, and massive, stretching far into the distance on the left, with a corner nearby on the right. There weren't any signs anywhere saying what it was or who was there, but I guess that wouldn't be very helpful out in the woods, as most people who came here probably knew what it was. I couldn't see any doors on this wall, and my hopes fell as I realized no lights were on anywhere, along the entire building. Just then, somebody on the second floor turned the lights on.

_There are people inside! Somebody has to know which direction Oreburgh is in!_

I ran to the right corner and looked around. This wall wasn't nearly as long, and there was a door about forty feet down. I tried the door and it opened, so I went inside.

There was a long hallway. I walked down, looking in all the rooms that had windows. All the doors were locked, so I eventually gave up trying them. All the way, I saw nobody. A few cages gave me chills for a second, but I ignored them and kept going. All the while, the lack of life made me more and more nervous. I found myself nervously jogging through the hallways, glancing in rooms as I went by. Whatever the building was used for, it apparently wasn't used any more. What creeped me out the most was that there were no corners. The hallway seemed to have no end, and very possibly went all the way down to the end of the building. Still, that meant I could look back and see light coming through the door I had entered by. That was comforting, to know it was impossible to lose my way in here.

_It's probably abandoned, and one of the light switches is buggy. There's nobody here, and there hasn't been for a while._

I was just about to turn around when I noticed one of the rooms ahead had something in it. I looked through the window and saw a lab table with papers lying in front of several computer monitors, still on and displaying something, and a fan going. Somebody was here! They might not be in the room, but there's no way they just left with all that there! They had been there recently enough that the screensaver hadn't activated yet, too. With a new burst of hope, I tried the door and found it unlocked. Nobody was inside, but there was a door leading to another room inside. I entered the door and stopped at what I saw. Cages upon cages lay inside. They were empty, but the memory of the cages I had seen earlier made me decide that I didn't want to explore any more.

I turned around and saw a red light blinking above the door I had come through. An alarm? That meant somebody would find me here! I was still deciding whether that was a good thing or a bad thing when I felt something hit my back. My surprise quickly faded as I half turned around to see both what it was and where it had come from. I didn't quite make it, falling down just as I got a glimpse of two people running towards me.

"You shot him! He's just a kid; you didn't need to shoot him!"

I couldn't move my legs or arms. I tried to talk, but nothing came out.

"Calm down, it was a tranquilizer dart. And besides, what did you plan to do? Explain to him why we have a bunch of cages in a secret building in the middle of nowhere?"

I started hearing a dull noise as my vision started to go black.

"There was no still need to shoot him! We … have just… him… … didn't …"


	2. Taken

"Sir, we really need to let that kid go. There is bound to be somebody coming after him, and if they find out we are holding him, there will be immediate police action against this whole group."

"I agree completely."

_What? He agrees? I was sure that he would argue with me, but if he's letting him go, I don't need to worry about… THAT happening to him._

"You do, sir?" I felt my eyes widen a little in surprise at his response.

"Yes. An investigation into our activities here would be disruptive, and would potentially cost us your formula." I flinched at the last two words. "No, we need to avoid scrutiny as long as possible, or at least until this facility is emptied. So, the boy will walk out. Of course, we don't know what he saw here, or what he will say, so he will need to have a little mishap in the woods."

My mouth went dry. Fearing the answer he would give, I asked anyway. "Accident? What kind of accident?"

My supervisor smiled at me, and my heart fell as my suspicions were confirmed. "That is entirely up to you. I want information on all the changes that occur during the process. Your equipment is already being moved to our previous facility. Now, we should be nice and go greet our guest when he wakes up."

* * *

I woke up to the sight of a metal bar in front of my face. An image of the stacks of cages popped into my head, and I screamed as I scrambled back and upwards. It was a metal table leg.

_No need to be so afraid. It's just a table leg. Not a cage. They wouldn't put you in a cage._

"Not the way I expected you to react when you woke up."

I looked over to see a man sitting on a chair. He had short brown hair, and some sort of skin tight suit on. He was smiling warmly at me, like he was a happy, kind sort of person, but his face gave the opposite impression when combined with his cold blue eyes. Behind him was a man in jeans and a t-shirt gathering the contents of the table in front of him and putting it into a box. He had a very sad look on his face, like he had recently stopped crying, or was on the verge of doing so.

"Sorry about what happened earlier with the guard. We had a recent robbery. He's been trigger-happy ever since, hence the tranquilizer darts instead of bullets."

That didn't seem like a valid reason to shoot me. The man hesitated, as if waiting for me to say something, then continued. "I assume you are from Oreburgh, correct?"

Again he paused, and I nodded. "Good. We have some things that we need to check on between here and there, so we would be able to accompany you back to the city if you wish. Unless you want to find your own way back?"

"No, I'll go with you." What choice did I have? I know I was told never to go anywhere with strangers, but I'm not sure that applies when you are in a strange, hostile place. Besides, I had already proven that I didn't know the way back to Oreburgh, so it looked like I was stuck with accepting his offer.

The man who had been gathering stuff closed his box and took it to the other room. I shuddered as I recalled the stacks of cages. Why would they need so many cages? This didn't seem like a factory or a warehouse, so they were planning to use them for something.

"So, do you have a name?"

"Will."

The man looked expectantly at me, probably waiting for a last name. When I gave none, he continued talking. "Well, Will, we'll be ready to go as soon as David finishes locking up." I noticed he didn't say his own name. He leaned in closer to me and began whispering. "His main project was canceled, and he's still a little touchy about it, so I'd advise you not to ask about it."

I hadn't been planning to, but I didn't say so. The next few minutes passed in silence as I fidgeted under the man's stare. When David returned, he went straight to the door without looking at either of us. I nearly ran to the door as he unlocked it, the other man following me. The three of us walked down the hallway, the man's eyes boring a hole into the back of my neck. When we went outside, I held the door for him so that he would pass me. He smiled at me again, the contrast in his face making me shiver, and went in front. David walked beside me as we approached a path I had not noticed earlier. He seemed to be even more upset than before, but no longer looked as if he was about to cry.

_Just how important was this project to him?_

After a few minutes of following the path, I began to see the corner of a building. As we came near it, I saw that it was the only corner still standing; most of the building had burnt to the ground, but somebody had cleared the debris from the center area, making the remaining walls look like a weathered ruin. When we drew level with the building, the man in front stopped and suddenly turned around. Surprised, I stopped as well, and was about to ask what was wrong when I felt something hit my back. The words froze in my mouth, as long as the rest of my body, and I fell down. For the second time that day, I had been shot with a tranquilizer, this time for no apparent reason. I saw three pairs of boot approach me, and one pair head back along the path.

_Where did these people come from? What's going on?_

The paralysis was complete, just like last time. I couldn't speak or control my limbs as I was picked up and carried towards the ruin. My fears grew to panic as I saw somebody open a metal door in the floor, and I was carried into the blackness below.

* * *

The phanpy had been easy enough to find. Evan went out and pulled it out of its usual playing spot, in the mud puddle on the edge of town. Will was another matter. The police had already been called; he had been gone for over two hours.

"Will," I cried once more, "where are you?" Kokodo had given up trying to follow his scent or tracks a while ago. His nose wasn't made for tracking, and his footprints were nonexistent.

Evan walked over. "The police officer should be over here any minute now. They'll find him within an hour."

"I hope so." They have to find him; he obviously wasn't coming back on his own. Why did he have to go running off like that? The phanpy hadn't even left town, but he missed it in his rush and went dashing into the woods. Why did he have to disappear like that?

I heard a low whine as a police officer on a motorcycle came up to us. The growlithe on the back jumped off and immediately began sniffing around.

"Are you looking for the kid that ran off into the woods?"

"Yes, I'm his mother."

"Can you tell me exactly what happened to the boy?"

"His name's Will. He was over here visiting several phanpy when one ran off. He ran off after it. It stopped before entering the woods, but he kept going into the forest. That was two hours ago, and we haven't heard from him since."

The growlithe gave a single bark. It was sitting down in front of the woods.

"Well, apparently there is only one trail going into the woods, so he shouldn't be too hard to find. I'll see you again soon, ma'am." The officer turned and walked into the woods, the growlithe walking in front of him with its nose to the ground.

_Please bring him back to me._

* * *

Someone had turned on a light. It was a single ceiling light in the middle of the room, directly above a metal table. There was a monitor against the wall, with several wires coming out of it. There was a smaller table to the side, with several syringes containing some type of red liquid in them. All in all, it looked like Frankenstein's laboratory.

_Please don't let it be blood in those syringes._

A camera in the corner repeatedly blinked in the direction of the table. I saw another camera above the light, blinking down at me as I was placed on the table. I hadn't passed out, but I wanted to. I couldn't move a muscle, couldn't even talk. I felt like curling up in a ball and crying until it all went away. Why is this happening?

They strapped me down to the table. I really began to fear for my life at that point, as I knew I would be unable to move for a while; why did I need to be strapped down? They began to place the wires from the monitor on my head and chest. Most of their hands were steady, but one of them was shaking so much that the wire would not stay put. One of the others gently pushed David into a chair in the corner, where he immediately put his head in his hands. The monitor next to him started up, showing all sorts of different lines and making a beeping noise in time with the top one, which I recognized as a heartbeat.

There was a sudden pain in my left arm. While I had been watching the monitor, one of the others had picked up a syringe and put it in my arm. It definitely wasn't blood; blood didn't make my arm feel like it was on fire. The pain spread up and out of my arm, intensifying as it went. When it hit my head, I felt my back arch as waves of pain went throughout my body. I felt my limbs thrashing about, tugging against the restraints. Somehow, the wires stayed attached. I heard a howl split the air with every pulse of pain.

_Is that me howling?_ I thought through the maelstrom in my head.

Then it ended. The pain went away. I stopped thrashing, exhausted. The howls faded away, replaced by a dull monotone.

_Is it over?_

I looked over at the monitor (I could move again) and saw that it was indeed over. All the lines were flattening out.

_No, no, no! That can't be it! I can't die here!_

I saw the others moving around me, David still in the chair. I saw their mouths move, but I couldn't hear or move anymore. My eyesight blurred, and then faded.

_I can't die! I can't die!_

I began to weep as darkness closed around me. It was so unfair! All I did was run into the woods! How did I get involved in this? I was getting my first pokémon! I was just looking for home!

My self-pity was interrupted by a low growl. I looked up, but didn't see anything around me. I heard another growl, and saw a pair of yellow eyes appear in the darkness. There seemed to be a slight pattern to it – like someone was saying something I just couldn't hear; but I was a little more worried about whatever was growling at me than whatever it was trying to say.

I tried to stand up, but my legs didn't respond. I couldn't even feel my legs, to know that they were even there. I felt a whimper of fear form inside of me. The yellow eyes were now accompanied by a set of snarling teeth.

The teeth lunged for me. I tried to scream, but they choked out my scream. Choked me until my thoughts were gone, and nothing was left. Nothing but the darkness. I was gone.

I couldn't believe what I had done. The kid had just showed up and I had killed him. I may not have directly done anything to harm him, but I made the formula that killed him. I might as well be standing over him with a bloody knife, because I had killed him just as surely as if I had stabbed him. I couldn't bear to look at the thing on the table where he had been.

Beep.

I snapped my head upwards, unable to believe what that might mean. Every eye in the room followed the single wave as it moved across the screen and out of view. My hopes fell again, just as another wave appeared, and shortly after that, another one. Soon his heart was beating regularly, and the other life signs were beginning to show activity again.

_Oh my god. This isn't possible. Here, in the dark, with outdated equipment and experimenting on a child, he survived. It worked. The world's only pokémorph is alive._


	3. What am I?

"Yes, a boy came by here earlier. We pointed him towards Oreburgh City and he ran off down that path there without saying anything else."

"Thank you very much. I'll let you know if we need anything else from you."

"Tell me if you find him."

The police officer waved a hand in response as he walked off after the growlithe. Fools, the both of them. They had barely even looked inside after the growlithe found the scent leading back outside, so they had no idea what the building was even there for.

It was probably better for them that way. One kid's disappearance was easy to explain, but an officer disappearing would cause issues that could not be swept out of the way by simply leaving.

_David better not have screwed up. I left him right after the kid was paralyzed, so it's still possible something went wrong. If I hadn't gotten back in time, that officer might have gotten a good look around our building. Not that we have anything of importance left here after our storage facility burned down. Those morons better make sure they don't leave a trace that they were there, only the kid. Everyone'll draw the right conclusions when they see that the building collapsed._

* * *

_Where am I?_

I groaned and rolled over. I felt like Kokodo had fallen asleep on top of me; my brain was screaming, and my whole body hurt from head to tail. I couldn't see anything but black fuzz. My nose was assaulted by foul odors from who knows what.

I groaned again as I remembered what had happened, then shock coursed jolted me awake as I realized I had survived it.

_How did I survive that? My heart stopped beating, I should be dead! That's impossible!_

Unable to think of a solution to this conundrum, I decided to check if all my limbs were still there and functioning.

_Let's see… my head is throbbing but whole, my neck is fine, ribs are in good condition, my legs feel weird, and my tail hurts like hell, but everything seems normal._

Then it finally clicked – Since when did I have a tail? And what happened to my arms? Where are they?

Realizing that the blackness obscuring my vision was because my eyes were still shut, I opened them and had a strong sense of déjà vu. Steel bars again! But this time it was the real thing, not a table leg. I was in a cage.

_Too many things are simply crazy. I have a tail, and no arms! And I'm standing in a… two foot tall cage._

I walked around in a circle, pondering this, and realized something else- I had four legs.

_That's it. Whatever they gave me made me really high and I'm hallucinating right now. It's not real._

My pride at figuring this out quickly deflated when I realized it didn't help me at all. The illusion didn't simply give up and disappear when I figured it out, so I seem to be stuck for a while.

_I might as well find out what I am in this dream._

With nothing else worthwhile to do, I thought about my four legs. Just how do I walk with four legs? I tried to turn in a circle and fell flat on my face. Four legs didn't work very well for somebody who was used to walking on two. I sat up and let out a growl of frustration. I looked down and noticed my front was covered in black fur.

_Four paws, a tail, black fur, sounds like I have teeth. So, what am I?_

My mind flashed back to what I had seen in the previous dream; yellow eyes, snarling teeth, very possibly black fur that blended in with the darkness. Could I be that? No, it was at least three feet tall, while I could easily stand up in this two-foot cage. While the knowledge that I wasn't whatever that was relieved me, it still didn't help me figure out what I was.

Unable to think of anything, I imagined walking with four legs. Getting a clear picture in my head, I tried to replicate it and hit the ground with my face again.

_How did I walk before? I walked in a circle before I realized I had four legs, so how did I do that without thinking about it?_

'You didn't think about it,' a thought said in the back of my mind. 'It came naturally.'

_Sounds ridiculous_, I thought, and tried again, hitting my snout hard.

_Fine, I'll give it a shot. It's not like I have a better idea._ I looked at the other side of the cage and decided to walk there without thinking about it; just act like I have two legs and walk.

_Maybe if I do it quickly enough I won't think about it…_

I yelped as I ran into the bars. I was putting a lot of bruises on my body, but at least I was mobile now, if a little clumsy. Pleased with my new skill, I walked around a bit, and decided that this was a very boring dream for being high.

_Now back to my original question: where am I?_

I looked around and realized that I was in a very long hallway. The hallway I had seen when I went into that building.

_I hope this dream ends soon_, I thought as the memory sent shivers down my spine. _Who knows what they're doing to me while I'm asleep on that table._

'Maybe they're done with you,' the voice piped up again. 'This is all they did to you. They turned you into this and left you here.'

As if on cue, two people I didn't recognize came in. They were wearing the same uniforms as every other person I had seen who seemed to be connected to this building.

"-and that's why you need to pay more attention to this stuff. You'll get in real trouble if you keep missing stuff."

"Hey, I can't help it. Half that stuff doesn't matter, and the other half makes no sense. Most of it's not worth listening to, so how am I supposed to know what is?"

"Hey, down here! Excuse me!"

Both of them looked towards me. "Oh, there's that poochyena. We're supposed to load that up too."

Of course, I was a poochyena! That explains the fur and the tail and the- wait, they didn't understand me.

"Hey! Let me out!"

"Ooh, it sounds angry about something. Probably 'cause it's the last one here."

"Any idea why it's still here? I thought all the pokémon were moved out a while ago. The boss said it was important, but it's a poochyena! How important can it be?"

"I told you already, I don't listen to that sort of stuff. Besides, he's never mentioned a Poochyena before."

OK, so talking to them was out of the question. Which was weird, because in all my dreams, pokémon can talk. This was beginning to sound less and less like a dream. It was long and boring, and besides me being… me, everything else was weird but possible.

One of them picked up my cage. I didn't notice, as I was busy digesting reality as they talked about something.

So, I… really am a poochyena. Whatever they put in me turned me into a poochyena. And now I'm in a cage, being taken… where? For what?

I realized it was probably for more experiments and a quick or painful death, but that realization didn't come until I was already in the back of a truck, with the door closing in front of me. I screamed and threw myself against the bars, succeeding only in hurting myself more. I looked at the locking mechanism and was surprised to discover it didn't need a key, only a thumb press. I tried to paw it open, but it was impossible. I felt the truck start, and lay down on the floor.

_I might never go home…_

* * *

I had stayed at Evan's house, waiting for the police to arrive with Will. Suddenly there was a knock at the door.

"I'll get it," Evan said as she rose, but I was already out of the room and throwing the door open. The police officer was standing there.

"May I come in?"

"Where's Will?" I looked around frantically, half expecting him to come running around from behind something. The other half knew the answer as soon as I didn't see him.

The officer looked down and said, "You may want to sit down." I didn't hear anything beyond that. The officer stood there and said something about a building in the woods falling down, but I didn't listen. I paid no attention as he became blurry and my cheeks and eyes turned wet and warm. Will was gone, and he wasn't coming back.

* * *

THUD.

I was jostled out of my self-pity and lethargy as the whole truck shook. My cage bounced around and ended up leaning against the door with several boxes on top of me. I heard shattering glass and something started oozing onto the side of my cage. It smelled just like the hallway had.

"Watch where you're driving!"

"Shut up, it's night and the lights barely even work! Get out and help me figure out what happened."

I heard two pairs of doors open. When they started walking towards the back of the truck, I started worrying about how much my cage hitting the ground would hurt me.

"That's a big hole. Completely destroyed the tire. I think we have a spare in the back. I'll go get it out, and you can call the boss and tell him we're going to be late."

"Hey, you were driving, you call him!"

"Too late, I'm already opening the back."

I closed my eyes as the door swung open and everything fell out. I felt the impact, but got a little pleasure from the stream of curses telling me something landed on the guy who opened the door. He kicked the boxes out of the way, hesitating before he kicked the metal of my cage. He picked up the cage and moved it to the side, grumbling more curses as he nearly lost his grip on the ooze. After moving everything to the side, he climbed into the truck, reappearing shortly afterwards with a large tire and a jack. He walked to the side of the truck, and I realized that I could see every detail of my surroundings despite the darkness. Forgetting my earlier feelings of self-pity, I looked around for anything I could use to escape. My eyes fell on a small cave to the right of the truck. I could easily fit in, but they would have trouble getting more than an arm in. Perfect, now all I needed was to get there. The ooze had fallen in the perfect spot, too.

"I told you, I won't call him. I looked for a flashlight but we don't have a working one in this truck."

"Fine, we'll explain ourselves later. I'll try to get this up, you put everything back in the truck."

"Why is everything out of the truck in the first – never mind, I'll do it."

The other grunt came around back and angrily began throwing boxes into the truck. My cage was one of the last objects to be picked up.

_Come on… grab the ooze…_

The grunt picked up my cage, and nearly lost his grip as his hands slid. He said a few choice words, but I just cared that his left hand was almost on top of the lock. I threw myself against the wall closest to him, then the other one as he frantically tried to keep his grip. Caught by surprise, he dropped the cage, his scrabbling fingers hitting the locking mechanism and opening it. As soon as the cage hit the ground, I ran through the open door and under the truck, towards the cave I had seen earlier.

"Ow- hey, get back here!"

Too late; I was already in the opening, running towards safety.

_Yes! I got away! I did it!_

I also hit my nose against solid rock. Wondering just what I had done to deserve so many bruises, I opened my eyes and realized I was at a dead end. A wide one, but there was no exit besides the way I had come; the crevice just ended there.

_No! I was so close! Why did I just run in the first opening I saw, just like I did in the woods? There was probably another, larger opening nearby that would have been a much better hiding spot, but now I'm stuck again._

Boots hitting the road in front of my hole drew my attention. I flattened myself against the ground and closed my eyes, wondering if they glowed like the thing in my dream.

"You lost it? How could you lose it? It was in a cage! A little poochyena got away from you!"

Fortunately, I was out of arm's reach, but if they saw I was still in there, they might just sit there and wait for me to come out. I didn't want to go with them, but if it was a choice between killing myself now and being killed later, I would have to choose later.

"Do you see it in there?"

"No, I don't. It's long gone. You idiot. We are going to be in so much trouble when we report that you lost it."

"I lost it? You drove the truck into that hole, it's your fault! Anyways, how important can one poochyena be? With any luck they forgot about it and we won't have to tell them what happened."

They took forever to fix the truck. The longer it took, the more convinced I was that one of them would come back and see me huddling on the ground. I think I fell asleep in that position, because suddenly there was no noise at all from them. I stayed down for at least half an hour before I decided to check if they were really gone. When I walked out, I realized it was still night, and they had disappeared down the road.

_Now what do I do?_

It seemed like an impossible choice. I couldn't just stay here; they might be back, and be prepared to find me. I wasn't an idiot; I was a test subject, one that they probably didn't want to lose. If I stayed here, I would be very easy to find. Besides, I didn't want to live in a mountain all my life.

I couldn't go home either. What was I going to do, walk in and announce to Kokodo that I was Will? My parents couldn't understand me, and in fact had no idea where or what I was. They might think I'm dead. That was a sobering thought; the only people who know me might think I'm dead. That means that they won't look for me, not that they would ever find me while I was a poochyena.

The third option I didn't even consider. No way was I going to follow that truck. Sure, that was probably the only way I could become human again, if there even was a way. They wouldn't turn me human, not after this. If they were going to change me back, they would have done it at the other building. Whatever they had planned for me wasn't pleasant, I was sure of that.

In the end, I decided on a compromise; I was too tired to go anywhere tonight, so I might as well find somewhere to sleep in the cave. Somewhere I could get out of in a hurry; I didn't want to be cornered again. So I walked along the path until I found a much bigger hole and went in. I was feeling all those bruises now, and my body ached with every step. I still stumbled every few steps, and took longer to get up every time. After rounding a few corners, I found a puddle of water. It was brown and shallow, but I had never been this thirsty before. I stuck my muzzle in and drank, not worrying about how I did it. After drinking for a few minutes, I decided to keep going. At that point, my body shut down. I had water, and now I needed rest. Unable to keep my eyes open, I just fell down in the middle of the cave and slept, letting the darkness pull me in.


	4. Chiri

Chapters one and two have been rewritten and combined. If you already know what has happened thus far, you really don't need to go reread it, but you can if you like. Here's chapter fi- I mean four.

* * *

I woke up with a ringing sound in my ears. Not like the buzzing sound I knew people complained about, but a real ringing noise. It sounded nice.

_What is that?_

"Hey, are you awake?"

I was still laying a few feet from the puddle, and nobody was in sight. I rose and turned around in a circle, looking for the source of the noise, but all I saw was a basket on the ground.

"Who is that? Where are you?"

The voice giggled, and the ringing stopped. "Up here, silly."

I looked up to see a chimecho floating above me, a little off to the side. It floated down so that its tail was resting on the ground, and smiled at me.

"Are you OK? I saw you lying there on the ground. Where did you get all those bruises? I healed them for you. What's your name?"

I realized that somehow, my bruises were gone. I felt great, like the beating my body had taken in the past day had never happened.

"My name's Will, I'm fine, thanks. You said you healed me? How?"

The chimecho went back up in the air and began floating around in front of me.

"I wished for you to get better, and you did. My bell probably helped too. By the way, my name's Chiri."

_She wished for me to get better? ..Oh, right, Wish is one of chimecho's egg moves. As for the bell, Chiri's not carrying any, so is it in her head?_

"Well, thanks for that. I've got to get going, I have to go…"

I started to head back towards the entrance, but stopped as I realized I still hadn't decided what to do. Chiri immediately interrupted my thoughts.

"Come on, don't go! We just met! Stick around for a while, it's safe in here. There are a bunch of people running around out there. You can at least wait until they're all gone. You can stay at my home until they leave, nobody else knows about it, and there's a secret way out. Well, I would have gone in there, but they were standing in front of it when I came back from gathering food."

_There can't be that many people that come by here. If there are a bunch of people out there, that probably means that somebody from that group… somebody wants to find me. I can't just walk out there. It doesn't really matter where I'm headed if they catch me again._

I turned back to Chiri.

"Well, I don't really want into run into a bunch of people, so I'll stay around here. At least until they leave, or I find a way around them."

Chiri gave a small whoop, and did a flip in the air, her bell ringing a little. She grabbed the basket with her tail before turning and darting down the tunnel, shouting as she went.

"Come on, my home's this way! You'll love it, it's a great home."

I briefly wondered how somebody could move that fast, and ran after her. She was faster than me, but she waited at all the corners until I got close to catching up.

One thing I noticed while I was running was that I shouldn't have been able to see; there was no light at all, yet I could still make out the outlines of walls and rocks as I ran further in. There was no smell here, and very little sound besides am occasional drip. I couldn't see any color right now, but I was glad to exchange that for vision down here.

_I guess this is just part of being a pokémon._

Suddenly, I arrived in a large cavern, but Chiri was nowhere in sight. I stopped and looked up to make sure she wasn't just higher up, but I didn't see her anywhere. The walls were smooth as far as I could see, there didn't seem to be any openings for her to dart into.

_Great. Now I'm lost down here._

"Up here!"

I looked up towards the source of the voice and saw Chiri poke her head out of the wall.

_Well, she's obviously not going through the wall, so there must be some sort of hole there that I can't see. That would be great for hiding in; nobody would ever suspect that somebody was there. Which leaves just one little problem._

"And just how am I supposed to get up there?"

"Oh, right… how about I carry you up here?"

An image entered my head of Chiri trying and failing to lift me, or dropping me halfway.

"Carry me? Can you even pick me up?"

Her only response was to float down and wrap her tail around me. I gave a yelp of surprise as my feet lifted off the floor.

I had always assumed levitation would feel like a sharp jerk upwards, but gravity simply let go off me. I didn't feel a thing besides a strong desire to hurl as the ground moved itself away from my feet. Thankfully, we quickly rose level with the opening in the wall, which I could now see. It was a few feet wide, and led quickly downwards. Chiri floated inside and dropped me onto the floor after dropping downward a little.

"So what do you think of my home? Do you like it?"

Chiri turned around and saw me still lying on the floor, trying to tame my stomach. Her face fell at the sight of me.

"Was it that bad? I've never levitated anyone else before, I didn't know it would make you feel that way. I promise I won't ever do it again."

I looked up at her and decided that she really had no idea what it was like to suddenly be levitated. Besides, she was helping me escape, so I really had no reason to snap at her. I waited until I was sure I wouldn't sound angry before I spoke.

"It was just a surprise. No harm done, but I would really prefer walking from now on."

Chiri didn't appear entirely convinced that I was alright, but she turned around and flew further into the cave, more slowly than before.

"Well, here it is. What do you think?"

I looked around. The first thing I noticed was that despite the fact that it was quite large, it didn't have much in it. There was a depression in the floor where Chiri had placed the basket that I presumed contained berries of some sort. Next to it was a makeshift barrel that seemed about to burst at any moment and release the water inside. Behind that, the chamber split in half. One half was empty, but the other half was dimly lit. I walked over and saw that the light was coming from a hole in the wall. It extended at a steep upward angle for a long distance, ending with a dot of light. I was so absorbed in wondering where it led that I jumped when Chiri spoke from directly behind me.

"That's how I normally get in, but there were some people there when I got home. I took the long way around, and when I found out how many people there were here, I was surprised nobody saw me. I darted in the cave when there wasn't anybody around, and I found you on the floor."

_That means that if she hadn't come along when she did, they would have found me on the floor. I would have woken up in a cage again. I owe her my life._

That was a disturbing thought. I barely even knew Chiri, and she had already saved my life and sheltered me. I owed her.

"Do you know those people out there? You seem to tense up whenever I mention them. Did they give you those bruises?"

I turned and looked at her. She was looking straight into my eyes. I had the feeling that if I wasn't a dark type, she would have been tempted to probe my mind for the answers if I didn't tell her.

_I can't lie to her, not after all she's done for me. I can't exactly tell her the truth; she'd never believe me, and if she did, would she trust me? I can't just refuse to give her an explanation, but I don't know what else to do. What the hell do I tell her?_

"Yes, I do know them. They were the ones who gave me the bruises." I couldn't believe I was telling her, but now that I had started, I couldn't stop. That didn't mean I had to tell her the whole thing, though. "They took me from my home and… did stuff to me. Injected something into me. They were taking me somewhere else when I got away. I'm sure that I'm why they're here; they're looking for me. If you hadn't woken me up earlier, they probably would have found me by now. I should go. As long as they know I'm here, they'll keep looking, and they might find this place." And experiment on you too, but I didn't say that part.

Her eyes widened as I told her what had happened to me. When I finished, she didn't say anything for a moment. I looked around at her home; it wasn't much, but it was safe, and she liked it. I couldn't stay.

"I can't put you in danger after all you've done for me. I need to leave, or at least find out what exactly those people are doing out there."

I turned and began to walk up the hole in the wall. If there were people at the top that hadn't noticed the hole, I could wait there for them to leave, and possibly find out what exactly was going on.

"Where do you think you're going? You're not just going to go walking out to them!"

I looked back in surprise at Chiri's outburst.

"Nobody knows about this hole, they won't find it. It's much safer to just wait them out in here than try to go around them out there. They can't search forever; they'll leave eventually when they don't find you. Then you can just walk out without worrying about them seeing you. That part about you putting me in danger? That's nonsense. And even when you do leave, I'm going with you."

The last part surprised me, and I came back down the tunnel.

"You're coming with me? Are you serious? You can't do that, this is your home."

"Yes, a very empty home. It's boring here; I want to go do something. Escorting a little poochyena past some dangerous humans sounds fun. You already know I can take care of myself and you, so what's the problem?"

I sat down for a moment as I considered what she had said.

_Come with me? Her healing abilities sure would be useful, and I'm starting to like her. I wouldn't mind traveling with her. But what will I do when I decide where I'm going? How will I explain that? Sure, I can just imagine trying to explain me trying to find a way to become human again. Hey, you know those people that I'm trying to avoid? I'm going to go follow them. I really can't tell you why. Or what if I decide to go home? Besides explaining myself to my family, if I find a way to communicate with them, I then have to explain myself to Chiri. That'll be really awkward._

"I'm really sorry, Chiri, but you can't come with me. It's dangerous, and I-"

"Again with the dangerous. I don't want to just sit around in this hole until I rot. I'm going with you, as soon as these people leave."

_Ugh, I don't think she'll take no for an answer. I guess I'll just have to find some way to explain myself eventually._

"Fine. But if you dislike being here so much, why are you here in the first place?"

Her face fell, and she looked away. For a while I thought she wasn't going to answer.

"I'd rather not to talk about that," she said quietly.

"Alright," I said, "I won't ask you."

There was silence for the next few minutes as Chiri seemed absorbed in something she was thinking about and I wondered why living in a cave was a touchy subject.

"Well, anyway, we should eat and go to bed. We've got some planning to do in case those guys get too close to us."

I was surprised; I could still see daylight streaming in through the hole in the wall.

"Sleep? It's still day, I can see the sunlight coming in."

"Since when does what time it is outside affect what's going on in here? We're too far down for the sun to decide our day and night, except through that hole. Besides, that means that we'll be ready to go as most of the people up there are still sleeping."

That made sense, sort of, but Chiri didn't wait for a response. She went over to the basket and pulled out several oran and sitrus berries. She tossed several over to me and I began to eat them. As a human, I had tried them, and while I didn't dislike them, they weren't all that great. Now however, I couldn't tell whether it was because I was a poochyena or hadn't had a meal in a while, but they tasted great. When we were almost done eating, a question I had never asked Chiri came into my head.

"So, why did you help me earlier?"

Chiri looked up at me. "Because you were hurt, and I could help."

"Yeah, but you didn't know anything about me. I could have been working with the people out there. Besides, you're a psychic type, and I'm a dark type."

She looked at me like I was crazy. "Is that any reason not to help you? You and I being different types doesn't mean a thing, we're both pokémon. It hadn't occurred to me that you would be working with the humans, and I doubted that they would have simply left you lying on the ground if you were one of them. I helped you because I saw you needed help. I see you still need help, and anytime you need me, I'll be there to help you."

"Thanks." I didn't know anything else to say to that, so we finished the meal in silence. After exchanging a "rest well," because good night would make no sense at this point, we went to bed. Chiri, I was surprised to discover, slept attached to the ceiling by the suction cup on her head. I would have burst out laughing at that if she hadn't immediately fallen asleep, her body sending out a little chime every now and then. I found a depression in the floor about my size and curled up.

_Wow, what a strange day. I fall asleep in a cave, and wake up to find a slightly crazy chimecho. I'm sleeping in a cave, while daylight is still coming in, and I still have no idea where I'm going to go or what I'm going to do. I hope tomorrow makes more sense._

'It's never going to make sense.'

Surprised at the voice, I jumped up and looked around. The cave was gone, the light was gone, and I was in complete darkness. Already dreading who it was, I turned to find a familiar set of yellow eyes looking at me. This time, the rest of the mightyena's body was there as well, just barely visible in the blackness. _Aren't mightyena's eyes normally red?_ I tensed up, ready for it to lunge at me. The mightyena laughed.

'I'm not here to fight you. I'm here to help you. We're going to be great friends in the future. We're going to grow to like and trust each other.'

I growled at him. 'Why would I trust you? You attacked me!'

The mightyena's smile grew. 'Did I? If I hadn't done that to you, you would have died. I bonded with you, and tied our lives together. I saved your life. It may not be the life you had, but you're alive. And, like it or not, we are now stuck together. You might as well embrace the new you, because there is no going back.'

'How would you know? What do you know about me, about everything that's going on?'

'I know a lot more than you do. I know what you need to know to survive. You won't make it anywhere without me. So why don't you let me help?'

Nothing he was saying seemed malicious or threatening when I thought about it – he wasn't even asking me to do anything - but every word he said still made my fur stand on end.

'Last time I saw you, you said I had a choice; to do something about my life or submit. Well, I choose to do something about it, but not with you. If I completely give up being Will, how is that different from dying?' I growled at the last part for emphasis.

'Fine, go on your way. But remember, you need me. Anytime you need my help, I'll be there.'

The mightyena turned and disappeared into the darkness. I kept watching in case he reappeared, but he never did. Warily, I lay back down, and the dream faded out of existence.


	5. From the Shadows

To those of you who received an email saying chapter five was up last time: Sorry, my bad. I uploaded it before removing chapter two, so it emailed that I uploaded chapter five, but it became chapter four. I promise not to do it again.

Oh, and Will gets in his first fight. It's a little graphic, so be warned.

Thanks to everyone who reads this, and especially those who have reviewed!

* * *

I was woken from my uneasy dreaming by a commotion. As I stood up, I realized it was coming from two sources; the humans outside were in an uproar over something, and something else was travelling verily rapidly and noisily down our hole. I went to look up the hole, and just had enough time to notice it was now night before I had to jump out of the way as something fell out of the hole.

It was a stunky. The stunky was a little smaller than I was, and it quickly picked itself up off the ground and looked around, looking very agitated about something.

"Hey, who are you-"

As soon as I spoke, the stunky glared at me and launched itself at me. Surprised, I didn't move until it knocked me over and began frantically biting and clawing at my chest. I yelped and kicked it away. The moment I got back up, it was on me again, this time going for my neck. It snapped at my neck, and I snapped back, my mouth closing around one of its paws. I bit down hard and felt something break. The stunky screamed and scratched my mouth, making me let go. It backed away and I got into what I hoped was a fighting stance, ready for it to leap forward again.

"What's going on? Who's there?"

Woken by the scream, Chiri floated downwards, and her eyes locked on the stunky as it turned to her and jumped. Chiri managed to get her tail in between it and her, and she fell to the ground with it on top of her. The stunky bit down and clawed a hole straight through her tail, resulting in the loudest scream I have ever heard. The scream stunned the stunky, who let go enough for her to flick her tail and send it across the cave. I felt my rage at this stunky growing higher and higher, and it felt like it was burning me up from the inside.

"Get away from her!" I shouted as I leapt at the stunky, who seemed to have forgotten me in its anger at being thrown. I bit deeply into the stunky's back, and my anger exploded into my mouth. The stunky screamed again and I threw it to the side with a sharp twist of my neck, realizing as I did that it had burn marks along with the wounds on its back.

_Burn marks? Was that Fire Fang? How did I learn Fire Fang?_

The stunky hit the wall and didn't move. Suspicious of a trick, I stayed still for a few moments before I slowly walked up to it, and when it didn't leap up and attack, I examined it. It wasn't dead, but seemed to be out cold, with one leg bleeding profusely.

Wincing at the cuts on my chest, I turned to Chiri, who had levitated nearly to the ceiling, still staring at the stunky. Her tail was dripping blood onto the floor below.

"Chiri, can you heal yourself?"

She tore her gaze from the stunky to look at me, and nodded. She closed her eyes, and after a few seconds, a golden orb grew in front of her. It dissolved into millions of tiny dots before flowing over her body, gathering around her wounds. The dots stitched her skin back together where there were cuts, but while it filled in the section where her tail had been ripped through, it left a large scar. When the last of the dots disappeared, I turned back to the stunky.

"Will, I need to heal you."

"No, now we need to figure out what to do with this stunky. It could wake up at any moment, and we need to figure out what to do with it."

Chiri floated in front of me. "Will, look at yourself."

I did. My front was crisscrossed with scratches from the stunky, some light, some deep, and a section of blood was making its way down my fur. I was leaving red paw prints, probably from the wounds on my chest. The sight made me nauseous. I closed my eyes.

"Alright, heal me."

I didn't see the orb appear, but I felt it. It felt like warm water running over my skin, and wherever it went, the pain dulled, but it didn't completely go away. After a few seconds, I couldn't feel it anymore, but the pain was much less severe. I opened my eyes and looked down to find that while there was still blood on me, it wasn't flowing.

My gaze returned to the stunky, who was still unconscious. The only thing I knew was that we couldn't kill it, not now. If it had been mid-battle, I might have been able to make that decision, but something held me back now. I knew that was probably the smartest thing to do- it had attacked us for no reason and probably would again- but I couldn't do it.

"We need to put it outside the cave. We'll watch it when it wakes up. If it doesn't try to attack us, we'll let it go. If it does…"

I let that thought trail off. I immediately regretted the plan as soon as I realized who had to carry it out of the cave. Chiri appeared to have arrived at the same conclusion as I had, and floated over to pick it up in her tail. She held it tightly, as if afraid that if she held it too loosely it would wake up and attack again. She floated out and down to the cave floor, setting it in the dirt. She returned to the opening of the cave, and we watched it from there.

"Chiri, I'm sorry about making you carry that thing. I made the plan before I thought it out and-"

"It's alright," she interrupted quietly, still looking at the stunky. "We couldn't leave it in the cave without killing it, and you couldn't carry it out. It was the only choice we had, even if it was hard to choose."

She still looked so depressed that I spent the next few seconds trying to think of anything to say to her. Movement below quickly took my attention, however. The stunky stirred, and got up and looked around. Then it ran down the cave, leaving blood on the floor as it went.

_It RAN. Burns, cuts, probably a broken leg, and it ran. Can it even feel pain?_

Shocked, I turned to Chiri to find that she wasn't there. I went back into her cave and found her in the middle of the room, staring at the wall. I sat down in front of her.

"Chiri, are you OK?"

She remained silent.

"Chiri?"

"Do you know what the strangest thing about that stunky was?"

I simply watched her as she looked somewhere above me and to my right.

"I can feel your emotions. You may be a dark-type, but I can still sense them. Happiness, sadness, fear. They're all there, if a bit hard to see. That stunky was different. It had only one emotion. Where we would have sorrow, joy, or even worry, there was simply a void. The only feeling present was overwhelming anger and rage. Normal pokémon feel all emotions. Even the cruelest have kindness, and even the best have some dark emotion buried in them. There was no balance this time, and all that stunky had inside was rage. "

While this information was disturbing, it wasn't what I had asked. I could tell I wasn't getting an answer until Chiri had said everything she was going to say, so I didn't say anything. Chiri shuddered and dropped closer to the floor.

"I can't help but wonder how it got that way. There is no way that it could arrive at that state on its own. Did those people make it that way?"

I walked over to her and leaned against her. I don't know why I did, but it seemed like it would comfort her, to let her know she wasn't alone. Suddenly, she burst into tears, her bell ringing mournfully, and I just stayed there until she stopped.

"And if they did it to one pokémon, can they do it to more?"

That was a disturbing thought, and it brought another one- if they had turned me into a pokémon, could they do the same with someone else? For a moment I thought that that might have been just what happened; that the stunky had gone through what I had, and it went insane. But no, if they had experimented on it and it went insane, they would have kept it under tighter control than they did me, if only for their own safety. Assuming they had done this, it wasn't an accident. It wasn't just insane, somehow, and they wanted it that way. But why?

"And if they catch you… will they do it to you?"

I couldn't think about that. Losing my body was bad enough, but losing my mind to rage as well? That would leave me beyond any hope of returning. The thought nearly terrified me, but I controlled myself as I realized Chiri could probably feel my heart beat speed up.

"They won't catch us."

Chiri sniffed. "I'm going to make sure of that. I'm going with you; I don't want to lie awake at night wondering if they turned you into some freak that just strikes out in anger at everything around them. I can't do that, I have to make sure you're safe."

I couldn't argue with that, not after the fight I had gone through. I was glad not to be travelling alone. I didn't care anymore about explaining my humanity; simply surviving was hard enough. Following those people to try to find a cure was now completely out of the question. So was staying here, I realized, as I remembered we had a blood trail starting right outside our cave. When they found that, they would find this cave, and if we were still here, they would find us.

I got up and turned towards Chiri, who seemed surprised by my sudden movement.

"Besides the way I came in and this hole, are there any ways out of this cave?"

Chiri nodded. "Yes, there are several, but why?"

She paled as I explained. "We're leaving NOW. Those people are going to come looking for that stunky. When they find the trail it left, it will lead them directly to us. We're not safe here anymore."

"Yes, you're right. I'll get our food."

Since we weren't coming back, we each took a drink from our water, and then I washed the blood off of me. Chiri was somehow mostly spotless, and declared that she would wait until we found another water source. Chiri picked up her basket of berries, and we headed outside. Chiri simply floated down while I found a series of ledges to jump to. Still unused to my body, I fell halfway, but it wasn't far, and I didn't break anything. Chiri floated down next to me. I motioned for her to go first.

"You know your way around. Let's try the nearest exit."

Chiri nodded and we began running down the hall, in the same direction as the blood trail. Thankfully, when we came to the next intersection, we went the opposite way the stunky had. I was relieved that we wouldn't be seeing it again, but I also hoped it wasn't captured. I had a feeling we would be seeing those people again, and I didn't want to see that pokémon along with them, or any others like it.

As we were running through the tunnels, one thing I did notice was that there were almost no pokémon here, besides a few solitary zubat flying around. I dismissed this as a result of the large number of people nearby. We never did run into any other pokémon on our way out of the cave. After about ten minutes of running, we saw starlight outside. Chiri kept going, but at the edge of the cave I grabbed her tail and forced her to stop. When I let go, she whipped around and glared at me.

"That hurt! What was that for?"

"Listen, do you hear voices?"

We both became silent. There were two human voices coming faintly from around the corner. I approached the edge of the shadows and tried to see them. I could see a path going down the mountain, and a forest in the distance, but not them. They were too far away for me to see them or hear what they were saying, but I could tell that one person was there while the other voice was coming from a machine. There was a slight glow coming from the right, but they didn't seem to be focusing any lights in our direction. Unable to distinguish anything else, I walked back to Chiri.

"There is one person talking out there, and there might be more. I can't tell where they are or whether they'll see us. I can see a path down, and if we can make it there, we'll probably be able to hide in the forest if they do see us."

Chiri sighed. "I'm a psychic, remember? I can tell you exactly where they are, and I can say that we're out of their sight. There are others there, but they're asleep. It is the middle of the night."

Feeling slightly embarrassed at forgetting Chiri's psychic abilities, I followed her out of the opening. As she said, the humans were out of sight, and we silently made our way down the mountain.

* * *

"What were you thinking, calling out this many people? We're supposed to be a secret organization. Several hundred people swarming a mountain, even in the middle of the night, is not secret. No one project is worth exposure at this point."

"This is important. We had the first ever-"

"I don't care what it was, it's gone now. Besides, if your past projects are any indicator, it's going to be a failure anyway. Remember that time you claimed to have located the three spirits? We spent thousands of dollars and three months watching and examining those lakes, and we found nothing! It's an experiment, and therefore replaceable. Our secrecy is not. You need to get everyone off that mountain now."

The videophone switched off before he could make a response. Furious, he let his rage out against the blank screen.

"You have no idea what I've accomplished with this! What have you accomplished? Running around, performing a heist here, stealing some information there, trying to gain status. I can give it to anyone I want! Why try to control pokémon when you can be them? Imagine if we could gain the powers of Mew, or Lugia, or Celebi! What would we care whether we were secret or not? Who would be able to do anything about it?"

Scowling, he considered ignoring her command. If they could only find that poochyena, they would easily be able to recreate the success. If he refused at this point however, he would never get a chance, even if he did capture the infernal dog. He would be removed from the organization, and he would never have this chance again. He couldn't afford to ignore her, not now. Not when success was within sight.

The thought of never having to listen to her again calmed him enough for him to regain his composure. He picked up a radio, and issued a short command.

Fine, we'll give up. It can't escape forever, it will leave a trail. We'll find it eventually. But for now, he would have to settle for the people who let it escape.

He went back to the computer and pulled up the transportation schedule. Finding the drivers of the last transfer from the old compound, he pulled up their profile.

"Employees 163 and 208. Basic employee status. Joined two months and six weeks ago, respectively."

_I do have more test subjects, but somebody to eventually test the adult formula on would be useful._

Satisfied with his decision, he shut down the laptop and gave it to a grunt to put away. As he climbed into his truck, he noticed a chimecho disappearing into the forest.

_Damn, I wish I'd seen that earlier. Chimecho are rare, and that last group we had proved useful. But now, I have more important things to do. I'll come back for that, along with that dog._

He started the car and drove down the mountainside, unaware that the pokemorph he had been searching for had gone into the forest alongside the chimecho, out of his reach.


	6. Trainers

_It's been two weeks since that poochyena got away. If only we had found it, we wouldn't be in this predicament._

There had been attempts to repeat the experiment, but all three ended the same way; the person underwent a transformation, and DNA tests confirmed a successful change, but they simply died. Technically, the first experiment had died as well, but after a few seconds his heart restarted somehow. More useful information on how that happened was locked away inside the dog's body, there had to be. Without it, however, no progress was being made. The adult formula was still being worked on, and with three failures already, another mistake would be the last. If it was enough of an embarrassment, his career would end as well.

_David should have come up with something by now. All our other genetic specialists have taken a look, but most couldn't even tell what was going on, much less why. It worked the first time; why not again?_

I looked up at a knock at the door, and motioned for David to come in. He was dressed neatly, as always, but he was walking oddly, and his eyes were showing signs of exhaustion. If he worked for much longer, he wouldn't be any use at all.

"David, take a seat."

He slowly sat down. "Sir, I know I haven't fixed it yet, but I think I know how to. If I just try once more, I can-"

"David, stop." He fell silent at my raised hand, and lowered his head to stare at the floor. "I know, you've been trying hard, but nothing has worked. We've had everyone we can look at it, and nobody has even found the problem, let alone the solution. We have to halt it, at least for a while. You're being reassigned, after a short break."

He picked his head back up, with a confused expression on his face. "You're giving me a break?"

"Yes. I realize you've been…overworking yourself, and your work has gotten worse as a result. You are not to report in for a week. What you do in that time is up to you."

"Yes… yes sir."

He rose to leave, but paused before going through the door. "When I return, if nothing has been discovered, what will I be doing?"

I went to my computer and pulled up my email. After scanning through the emails, I found his reassignment.

"David, have you ever heard of shadow pokémon?"

He looked confused. "No, I haven't. Are they similar to dark types?"

"No, not at all. You can worry about that when you return." I motioned for him to leave, and he did.

_I can't believe I am still reliant on weak people such as this. He's worried about ethics and morals, about a few people that are of no use to us or him. Who cares if a few people get hurt in testing? This is for the good of the world, and we can't afford to stop simply because it requires a few sacrifices! It'll all be worth it in the end._

_

* * *

  
_

Two weeks after leaving the mountain we still had no idea where to go. Chiri suggested we find my family, but I wasn't too eager for her to find out my family was human, so I said that I had lived in a mobile pack, and I had no idea where they would be. She agreed it would be impossible to find them, and dropped the suggestion. I think the idea of meeting a pack of mightyena intimidated her a little bit. She dodged questions about her family, but I did manage to find out that her family was in Hoenn. She didn't say how she got so far from there, and I stopped asking after a few silences.

Other than not having any sort of destination in mind, we were having a pretty good time. We abandoned Chiri's basket after discovering that food was plentiful enough that carrying it around was a waste of time. We met quite a few pokémon, most of whom were very nice, but neither of us brought up the suggestion of staying with them. We both silently agreed to keep moving, I'm not sure why. It's not like we had somewhere to go.

On several occasions, I had an urge that I cannot describe except as a desire to hunt. I did my best to ignore that, however; most of the pokémon we met were friendly, and I had no desire to alienate myself from them or Chiri. Besides, while I had an urge to hunt, I didn't think I had a desire to eat raw meat, so I had a bit of a conundrum. I just did my best to ignore it when it came up and didn't look up at the pachirisu above my head or at the bidoof around the corner. It didn't help much; I didn't have very good eyesight out in the daylight, but my senses of smell and hearing were much greater. I could smell so much, I could barely tell what was what, let alone where it was, and my hearing was the same, though it seemed to be improving.

That was another thing about being a pokémon; you're never alone. The cave was an exception; out in the forest there are pokémon EVERYWHERE. Even if I couldn't see them, I could tell they were there, in the air and trees above me, all around me. One time, I was convinced that I could hear someone in the ground below as well, but Chiri didn't hear anything. The forest seemed to be so much more densely populated than it ever had in Jubilife, but it wasn't nearly as crowded. I don't know how that's possible, but it was.

To tell the truth, I enjoyed it. I liked being around Chiri, meeting other pokémon, and sleeping out under the stars. I didn't cry myself to sleep anymore when I remembered my family. I was moving on. I would leap at the chance to become human again, but I was beginning to realize that if that chance never came, I could accept being a poochyena.

Of course, there were downsides. Going from several feet tall with two legs to one foot tall on four legs is not something you can adjust to overnight. Everything seemed so big, and walking was weird, even if I could do it. While most of the pokémon we met were friendly, or at least were civil towards us, there were several that were not. We ran into several nasty croagunk and one overprotective mother arcanine, but thankfully we didn't get any serious wounds. Nobody attacked with the ferocity the stunky had, even if they were much stronger, and I was beginning to see how the stunky had disturbed Chiri so much. Pokémon simply did not act that way out here in the forest.

And then there were trainers. We didn't see many, and none of them saw us, but most of the pokémon we met seemed to have a story about a close encounter with a trainer, or something they had seen a trainer do. None of them had the reaction Chiri had, though. Whenever we saw a trainer, she would either go completely silent for hours on end, become depressed, or become furious. She tried to hide it sometimes, but she didn't do a very good job of it. It was so different from the cheerful disposition she normally had, it almost scared me. After the fourth trainer that day passed by, I decided to ask her about it.

"Chiri, why do you hate trainers so much?"

This, apparently, was one of those times where she became furious, and she whirled around to face me. "Why would I not? They're so arrogant and uncaring; I can't believe they don't think about what they're doing. They don't care about us, they think of us as completely inferior to them. They think they can just come in here and look for strong pokémon to take away from their homes. What can you say about someone who does that? Some sort of sadist who enjoys fighting people they don't know might like them, but if you're a normal pokémon, I don't see how you could agree to go along with them. If you ask me, they should…"

I zoned out after a little while. I felt kind of guilty; I wasn't a trainer, but I still felt like Chiri was accusing me, or people in general. Yes, I had been planning to be a trainer, but I had some sort of vague idea that if a pokémon didn't like me, I would release it where I caught it. I knew there were plenty of people who didn't do that, and I wasn't sure if I would have ever followed through with that plan. Her speech made me very uneasy about having even planned to be a trainer. Then I started thinking about my brother. What did he do if a pokémon he caught didn't like him? Was he even a nice trainer? _I can't believe I never thought about that before._ Suddenly, something Chiri was saying broke through my thoughts and brought me back to reality.

"..the worst! It would be so much better if you simply had some feeling while you were in those balls, but it's just a void, it's like you don't even exist. It looks like a little world in there, but it's just an illusion, and you can't do anything there. It's torture to get sucked into those things. I hope I never go in those again."

"Wait, you were captured?" That was new information. I had never known she was a trained pokémon at one point, but there didn't seem to be any other explanation of how she would know what being inside a poke ball was like.

At first, she didn't say anything, her eyes and mouth wide with shock. I think that's the only time I've ever seen her actually speechless. I guess she hadn't meant to let that fact slip. Eventually she found her voice.

"Yes, I was- well, my brother and I were captured. That's how I got to Sinnoh from Mt. Pyre."

"Well? What was it like? If you were a trained pokémon, why aren't you anymore?" In retrospect, I realized that probably was not a good question to ask, given her anger towards trainers, but I was curious. A faint voice from the path reminded us, however that there was a trainer nearby. After we both glanced in the trainer's direction and decided he hadn't heard us, Chiri turned back to me.

"Do we have to talk about this now? I promise, I will tell you, but not now. Maybe tonight."

Satisfied with that promise, I waited with Chiri for the trainer to leave. After the trainer went on their way, we did as well, and we soon came to a clearing. The plants that grew in the clearing grew several feet tall, making anything more than a few feet in hard to see. We knew from experience that when we went in, we would be hidden from anyone that didn't fly above us, so we decided to stop there for now. We spent the next few minutes looking for food and scouting for nearby pokémon. We discovered a berry bush with enough for both of us, and only a small group of bidoof and bibarel nearby, so after eating, we lay down for the night. The whole time, Chiri was completely silent, not letting out a single chime, and she stayed that way until after we ate. I waited for her to begin her story, but she remained silent, staring off into space, until I decided she wasn't going to talk and lay down to sleep. Just as I drifted off, she started to speak.

"I said I'd tell you how I was captured and I will. It's a long story, and there are moments I'm not proud of. Like anyone else, I have made mistakes, so I just want you to remember that I've changed since that time. I won't make the same mistakes."

"As you know, I was born and raised on Mt. Pyre. There weren't many pokémon there. We occasionally saw a duskull, shuppet, or vulpix, but mostly I was surrounded by my relatives. As chimecho, we live a long, so in one day I could see more generations than I could count. I lived with my parents and three siblings, near the bottom of the mountain. We were mostly undisturbed there except for the human elders at the top and a few trainers. The elders were nice, but they were strange, always talking about ancient times that even the duskull didn't mention. We mostly stayed away from them after hearing their stories once or twice. The trainers didn't come often, but my parents always hid us until they left. They always warned us that they would take us away, and that we didn't want that, we wanted to stay on the mountain forever. But we didn't; at least I didn't, and I assume several others felt the same way. It was a nightmare being on that mountain. Nothing ever happened. Whenever we wanted to try something new, we always had to get permission from someone, normally our parents. Then they would ask their parents, and their parent, and their parents. Most people assume that having a lot of old people around to give advice would be a good thing, but it's not. Nothing ever gets done, because someone always has a reason not to do something, and if they don't they'll ask someone else for one. I tried talking to duskull several times, but they didn't make any sense, unless they were talking about something depressing. Never talk to a duskull."

"It was a relief when a trainer caught me. I should have felt guilty that I was disobeying my parents and showing myself to a trainer so I could get away from them, but I didn't. I just felt excited about finally getting off that foggy rock and going somewhere, and finally doing something. He captured my brother as well, so it wasn't like I was completely leaving my family behind. Besides, our trainer was nice. We were allowed to travel alongside him whenever we didn't have to be in our balls, and he treated us well. I got to know my teammates well, and we became friends. We practiced together, and battled together. I hadn't battled much at home, so it was odd at first, but my brother and I slowly got better at it. It felt great to be congratulated by my trainer and friends afterwards. That was great while it lasted."

"My brother became better at battling then I was. Our trainer noticed, and began using him more. I didn't mind; I still fought often, and it made sense that he would be used more if he was better. But then he completely stopped using me in battles. I went several weeks without fighting, and I began to notice that I was the last one called out of my ball and the first one called back in whenever our trainer went somewhere we couldn't. As time went on, I grew distant from my trainer. He rarely talked to me, and I realized all he had really talked to me about was battling. Nothing else. When he stopped sending me out, he had nothing to say to me, and we both knew it. Later, he called me back into my ball, and I never saw him again. He just never let me out. I have no idea how long this went on; it could have been mere days, or weeks, or years. I had no way of knowing. I was trapped in that void, surrounded by an illusion. I had never hated being in there before, but I did now. I couldn't feel my body, couldn't feel hunger or thirst, and I didn't even feel alive. The mountain was similarly dead; there was no other soul on it, not even an illusion. The mountain never moved, never changed, and eventually it simply faded into nonexistence. I almost went insane in there. All I could see was a gray fog everywhere, in all directions. I could move in any direction as far as I wanted and find nothing. After a while, I simply curled up and thought about being outside. I couldn't understand why I had been left there; I fought hard, I got along with the team, I was kind. Why was I left here alone?"

"Some time after that, I was suddenly let out. Everything seemed different; the land, the air, my trainer's voice, but it was real. I was shocked to find myself in reality again, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I was in a battle. After all this time, he still considered me useful, and I could prove that I did not have to go in that ball again! I quickly defeated my opponent, and turned beaming to my trainer to see if he approved, but he wasn't there. Somebody else was there, recalling me back into the void. I couldn't believe it. I had been traded. I had been told what trading was, and knew that it happened, but I couldn't believe it had happened to me. Did he consider me that useless, that he just handed me off to somebody else without ever telling me? I never got to say goodbye to my brother, or my teammate. Did he care about that? All these questions were going through my head as I waited in the gray fog. My new trainer didn't let me or my new teammates out often, but only to eat, battle, and practice. I never learned most of my teammate's names, and I didn't even know what species two of them were. I didn't try to talk to them, because I knew that in an instant they could go away forever, and it just wasn't worth it. As time passed several of them did; pokémon I battled next to one day would be suddenly gone, replaced by another face I didn't know. Since none of us got to know each other, I assume our trainer did not either. I know none of us really cared for her. We tried to escape several times, but we were somehow drawn back every time, no matter how hard we tried."

"One day, we were caught in a blizzard. Our trainer called us out to help find our way back to civilization, but we were hopelessly lost. We tried to wait it out, but it didn't pass, as if something was controlling it. The next day, we met the source of the storm; an abomasnow on a rampage. It found our camp and went wild. I ended up lying dazed in a snow drift, with no idea how I got there, when I suddenly realized something. The pull I had felt earlier, that had prevented me from escaping, was gone. I don't know what happened, if the ball finally broke from the cold or it was destroyed by something else, but I didn't care. As soon as I realized I could leave, I did. Later, I regretted it. I should have gone to help everyone else, I should have stayed to protect and heal them, instead of abandoning them. Even if I wasn't much of a threat to the abomasnow, I could have healed them so they could drive it off. I really don't know what happened to them. I tried to make it through the storm, but the snow was so thick, it reminded me of being in that poke ball. I found an evergreen tree, and wrapped myself around the middle. It was cold, but it wasn't wet or windy, and the snow was kept out by the branches. I fell asleep there, and stayed in that tree until the storm went away. By the time the storm faded, I was weak, and I wandered without any idea of where I was going. I ended up near the base of Mt. Coronet. Some local chimecho found me and helped me to recover."

"During that time, I had nightmares about what I had done. I saw that blizzard hundreds of times, and I saw the abomasnow kill endlessly while I ran away like a coward. I saw my teammates' and trainer's faces, bloody and frozen in the snow, asking me where I was, and why I left them to die. I didn't know them that well, but it felt like I had killed them. I saw my family, my parents weeping over my disappearance, and I realized I had never said goodbye to them. They raised me, and all I wanted was to get away. I had abandoned them as well. And I saw my first trainer. I tried to call out to him, to ask him why he traded me, but he simply turned and walked away, leaving me in the fog once again. I think I called out in my sleep several times; when I woke up, most of the chimecho seemed to know how I had gotten there. They cared for me, and comforted me. I decided to go find my family to try to make amends, but I had no idea where to go. I was told that Hoenn was to the north west, and I said goodbye to the chimecho, thanking them for what they had done. I don't think they knew Hoenn was across the ocean. After a few months of failing to find a way across, I made my way back to Mt. Coronet, but they weren't there anymore. I don't know what happened to them, but I stayed there in case they returned. As you can tell, they never did, but I stayed in that cave for months waiting. Eventually I realized they weren't coming back, but I stayed there. That was years ago. I'm a different chimecho now. I stopped dwelling in the past, or so I thought; you seem to drag these memories up by your presence."

Deciding I was finished telling my story, I opened my eyes to see Will asleep. "And you fell asleep?"

_What? I just said the whole thing, and he missed it all!_

Apparently, my chime started to ring, because he suddenly stirred and looked up at me sleepily. "Hmm? Sorry, were you saying something? I guess I fell asleep…"

I shook my head. "No. I was just thinking out loud. It's nothing. You can go back to sleep."

He yawned and put his head back down, falling asleep almost immediately. I stifled a laugh; he looked cute curled up asleep.

_I don't think I'll tell you just yet. I can't help but wonder what you'll think of me. I don't want to be abandoned again. I will tell you eventually, but not yet. Not for a while._

"And I promise I won't abandon you. I won't ever make that mistake again," I whispered. Will moved a little, but he didn't wake up. I smiled and curled up as well. I dreamed, but the nightmares didn't come.

* * *

I know, long chapter. Over 3,800 words, but I didn't want to break this up. And yes, Will didn't hear a word of what Chiri said.

I promise something will actually happen next chapter; I'm not having another back story for a while.


	7. Maria

I was sleeping pretty well, until somebody started poking me. I continued dreaming until I suddenly received a hard blow to my back, and when I jumped up, I saw a large hairy face with a pig-like nose glaring at me.

"WAKE UP!"

I yelped and backpedaled, tripping over myself and Chiri, who had also been woken up by the yell. We got up and looked around to find ourselves surrounded by a group of several mankey and a primeape glaring at us.

"WHY WERE YOU IN OUR HOME-SPOT?"

"Yeah, what are you doing here?"

"Trying to take our land? Disrespecting us?"

"Looking for a fight?"

I backed up a little, knowing full well that the mob was behind me as well, and gulped.

"I'm sorry; we didn't know this was yours. We just slept here because -"

"QUIET! YOU ARE STILL ON OUR LAND, AND THERE IS NO EXCUSE!"

I didn't know what to say to that, but Chiri spoke up this time. "Would you stop yelling? We can hear you perfectly fine. We didn't know this was your land. If you want pokémon to know, make some sort of signal so that when you aren't here nobody will come in. How else do you expect us to know that you claimed this land?"

"Chiri," I said softly, "I agree with what you're saying, but don't you think we shouldn't be aggravating them?"

"They were already angry, and they don't intend to let us go without a fight. I'll speak my mind, since it won't change what will happen. Just be ready to fight."

The primeape was hopping in place with rage, his eyes bulging. The mankey behind him were doing likewise. "YOU CAN'T ORDER ME IN MY LAND-HOME! AND I AM NOT YELLING! OUR SCENT IS ALL OVER THIS PLACE; THAT IS OUR SIGN."

I growled back at him. "That's a blatant lie. You all are giving off a pretty strong odor, and this place smelled nothing like you last night. I'm not sure you were ever here before-"

The primeape cut me off by lunging at me, swinging his fists and bellowing. I jumped backwards, dodging the first punch, but the second knocked me backwards. He came at me again, but as he swung I leapt forward and bit his arm, drawing blood and burning his arm. He screamed and smashed his other arm on my back, forcing me to let go as my breath fled from my chest. I didn't see his other arm swinging, but I felt him hit my side, lifting me into the air. When the world stopped spinning, I saw that the primeape was on the ground as well, rolling around and holding his head, moaning. Chiri floated in between us

"Stop it," Chiri said. "We're going to leave, and unless you want to feel this again, you won't attack us."

Most of the mankey stopped jumping about, looking at their leader in confusion, but several detached themselves from the group and ran towards Chiri. I tried to say something, but I was still winded and could barely stand. Chiri whirled around at the last moment and caught one of them in her tail, bringing the screeching mankey up to collide with the second, who was trying to get above her. She knocked several back with a loud cry, but a few came close enough to tackle her to the ground. They immediately reeled as if hit by something, but stayed focused on keeping her from levitating out of their reach.

I finally got my feet underneath me as well and ran towards the mankey, intending to knock them away from Chiri. The primeape, who had apparently recovered from his sudden headache, met me halfway and sent me to the ground again with a double-handed blow to my head. A mankey held me down, screeching something unintelligible, as the leader walked up to Chiri, his face contorted with rage.

"YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT!" He screamed, raising his fists.

"What is this, a beating? Can't take on two pokémon in an even fight, cowards?"

We all looked up in surprise at the new voice. The mankey stopped jumping about and screeching, and simply stared at the marowak casually looking over the mob. She walked up to the primeape, twirling her bone by her side.

"Since you appear to be the leader of this mob, I guess this was your decision. Feel like a fair fight for once?"

The primeape seemed a little shocked that someone would just come up to him and challenge him like that. "Who – WHO ARE YOU TO COME ON OUR TERRITORY?"

The marowak stopped twirling her bone and placed it in front of her, leaning on it and staring at the primeape as if bored. "So is that a yes or a no?"

The primeape let out a somewhat-strangled screech, and swung a fist at the marowak. She simply let him connect with her bone, watching as the primeape backed up, cradling his bruised hand. Suddenly, she twirled her bone upwards and brought it down on the primeape's head, who was too surprised to react. He fell to the ground without a sound. The mob of mankey resumed its screeching and jumping, ignoring Chiri and me, and several members of the mob ran towards the marowak. I could swear her eyes lit up as she turned to face them, knocking them all aside with swift blows from her club. The last mankey tried to, but she backed up and let it fall in front of her before again knocking it away with her club. The mankey fell to the ground, and the others backed away, their screeching lowering to a whimpering as they inspected their unconscious leader. The marowak made as if to charge them, and they turned and fled into the forest, dragging the unconscious members of their group behind them. She laughed and turned to us. If I could see her face, I was sure I would see her grinning.

"Ah, that was fun. It's not every day I get to fight a mob. Are you two okay?"

I nodded. Aside from being winded, I hadn't taken any serious injury, and Chiri had already somewhat healed both of us while the mankey were occupied with fighting.

The marowak seemed to be what I had imagined ever since I had first learned what they were; she was obviously strong, and a good fighter. Her skull helmet was worn, and had several scratches over it, but she didn't seem to have any scratches on her body. I couldn't tell much more, but I blamed that on my inexperience as a pokémon.

"Thanks for helping us. We're fine, but we might not be if you hadn't shown up then."

The marowak began twirling her bone again, tossing it from hand to hand.

"No problem. I heard the shouts and decided I needed some exercise. My name's Maria. Yours?"

Chiri floated closer. "I'm Chiri, and this is Will. I'd like to say thanks as well. Were you hurt during that fight?"

"By them? Not likely. The primeape never touched me, and the mankey don't know how to fight beyond 'jump on it and hit it.' Besides, as a ground-element, I can take a hit pretty well. So, unless you live in this clearing, where are you headed to?"

Chiri glanced at me. "Well, we don't really know. We're not going to any certain place, just going away from the mountain. It got a little dangerous, so we're just wandering around now."

Maria nodded solemnly. "Going where the wind takes you? Same here. I've been wandering for a while now. Almost settled down a few times, but it never felt right. Like I was meant to be somewhere else, know what I mean?"

I had no idea, but I nodded anyway as Chiri shook her head. The marowak shrugged at our mixed response.

"Well, since I'm going to be coming with you, any particular direction you wanted to go?"

I was a little surprised by this sudden decision. "Wait, wait, you're coming with us? I mean, I'm sure we'd be glad to have you along, but when was that decided?"

Maria put her bone over her shoulder. "Why wouldn't we? Travelling alone is no fun, and you two don't seem too experienced in fights, no offense. There's safety in numbers. Anyways, did you have a destination in mind?"

"Um, no, we don't really have a destination."

"Great, I guess that means we're headed south."

Chiri, apparently, hadn't been convinced yet. "Why south?"

"Well, you said you were headed away from the mountains, which are to the west. I came from the east, and the mob ran north, so the only direction left is south."

With that, Maria turned and started walking off, not bothering to check if we were following.

"So, what do you think?" I whispered to Chiri.

"It can't hurt to go along with her. For a little while at least," she whispered back.

I wasn't too sure about that, but I didn't argue as we started after the Marowak.

We walked in silence for the first few minutes, Maria leading. After making our way over a small river, Chiri spoke up and asked her where she had been traveling before she met us. She explained that she had mostly been wandering around the mountains before heading farther out to see what was there. She then inquired what we had been doing, but didn't seem to pay much attention up until we got to the stunky. That caught her attention.

"I'm sorry – could you repeat that?" she asked, stopping and turning to face us.

Chiri sighed; we had both noticed that she wasn't paying much attention to what we were saying.

"We were sleeping when suddenly this stunky fell into our cave. We tried to talk to it – well, Will tried, and then it attacked us. I was just waking up, and I was caught off guard because the anger coming off of it was suddenly so strong, it just overwhelmed me. I've never seen anything like it; it just went crazy, screeching and clawing. It gave me this scar here," she said, straightening out her tail to show the line on it, "but we managed to knock it out. When it woke up, it just wandered off as if it had completely forgotten about us."

"You didn't see any reason for it to attack you? It wasn't already hurt or something?" Maria asked, tapping her bone on her shoulder.

"I didn't see any marks on it," I said, taking advantage of the momentary stop to sit down. Maria set a fast pace, despite her short legs. Compared to her body, that is; she was a good two feet taller than me. "It didn't seem like it had any reason to attack us."

"That's odd. Well, sitting here won't do anything, so let's keep moving. And you," she said, pointing her bone behind Chiri and me, "do you want to explain why you were following us?"

Chiri and I both turned around to see… a tree. A moment after I started doubting the marowak's sanity, a small torchic edged out from behind the tree. Its eyes were wide, and it gave a squawk before quickly stumbling backwards into the bushes and out of sight.

"Chiri, what did you sense from it?" Maria asked.

"Well, nothing. I didn't have time to."

"…That torchic started following us shortly after we crossed the stream. We don't know this territory, so it would be best to keep an ear- or a mind, in your case, out for anything hostile. Will, did you notice it?"

I shook my head. "No, I didn't."

Maria looked back and forth between the two of us. "You're serious? Neither of you noticed it? Will, you've got better senses of smell and hearing than I do, and Chiri, you're psychic! You do realize that there are hunting grounds all around here? Not noticing these things could be a matter of life and death. If you don't train yourself to sense these things, you won't last long here. Now we've stalled enough; let's keep moving. If you want, I'll help you on this later tonight."

Abashed, we followed her.

"I'm sorry," Chiri said to me as we walked through a sparse section of forest, this time doing our best to remain alert.

"What are you sorry for?" I murmured back. "You don't have anything to apologize for."

"Yes I do. I can tell you're still young, you can't be more than a year old." Funny, that was something I hadn't really thought about; how old was I? I had been about ten, and this body obviously wasn't a newborn, but I wasn't sure how old I was. "I, however, am much older and should know better. I did, at one time, but not after living in a cave so long. Still, I should have remembered to look out for us."

"You did nothing wrong," I assured her. "We'll just get used to looking out and keeping watch. No harm done if we're a little late."


	8. Hunting grounds

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that the sunlight was way too bright. I groaned and rolled over, willing the sunlight to leave me alone. I still hurt from Maria's version of training she had put me through last night. I couldn't pinpoint any specific injuries; just a general ache all over.

The sunlight refused to go away or lessen its intensity, so after a few minutes I rolled back onto my stomach and stood up. I was in a small field next to a rock outcropping, the trees suddenly growing thick and dense on one side, a few feet after the forest started. It was still heavily shaded now, despite the fact that the sun had risen well above the trees. Just looking at it brought back memories of last night, when Maria took me to the darkest part of the forest so I could barely see, then hid and leaped out from the most unexpected places, and called it training.

"You rely too much on your sight," she had said. "First you use your nose to discover what is around you, then your ears to find it. Only after that, when you know what you should focus on, do you use your eyes." My opinion of training was an actual sparring match, but when I said that she just laughed and asked me how long I thought I would last in a serious fight against her, or if I wanted to fight Chiri. I didn't complain out loud after that.

"Good morning," I heard Chiri call out from somewhere above me. I looked up to see her coming down from the top of the rocks. "You slept in late, sleepyhead. I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever wake up."

"It's not my fault," I protested. "That training last night was intense! I can still feel it all over."

"Really? It didn't seem all that bad last night, but – oh! A little anger, but some happiness too. It is a good day, after all," she said, bobbing up and down with no apparent intention to explain what she had just said.

"What was that about?" I finally asked, after waiting to see if she would say anything else.

"Training," she replied. "I want to make sure I try to sense anyone around me, and not have their presence just roll over me, so I'm doing it consciously until it becomes a habit. The easiest way to do that is to identify emotions."

"So, would this be Maria's training?" I asked, wondering how she got off that easily.

"Nope. It was all my idea. We actually didn't do much training, since I can easily tell what's around me, I just have to listen. Mentally, of course. We tried a little physical training, but it didn't seem likely to help either of us get better, so we mostly worked on strategy in a fight."

Hoping to avoid her picking up a twinge of jealousy, I decided to change the subject. "So, about what we were talking about two nights ago. You were once a trained pokémon?"

I didn't need psychic abilities to tell that was the wrong question to ask, as Chiri's smile slid from her face, and her constant back-and-forth motion stopped. "That was… a difficult time, and I'd prefer if you didn't ask about it."

"Sure," I said slowly, wondering how it could be that bad. Chiri looked absorbed in thought, and thankfully didn't seem to be picking up on my emotions as I searched for a topic that couldn't turn toxic. Then I realized that someone was missing.

"Hey, Chiri. Where's Maria?"

"She went off to see someone she knows around here. He's a bit of a hermit, so last night we decided it would be best if she went alone. She should get back in a little bit."

"What'd she go there for?"

The frown disappeared from her face, and she let out a little laugh. "I can't tell; it's a surprise!" She resumed laughing as my stomach gurgled, reminding me I hadn't had anything to eat yet, or last night either. "You'd better get something to eat. I found a good patch of berries a little bit to the south-west, just across a small stream."

"Thanks, I'll be back soon," I said, trying to figure out from the sun which way was west as Chiri floated back on top of the rock. I decided west was towards the lighter woods, so I walked in that direction and a little to the right. Chiri started laughing again as soon as I got to the edges of the woods.

"That's north-west, Will! South-west is to the left."

"Oops." I heard Chiri say something about me being embarrassed as I went in the correct direction, but I pretended not to hear. _Talking with Chiri is going to be a little awkward from now on if she keeps shouting out emotions like that._

As I walked, I started wondering what Maria could need from whomever she had gone to meet. She didn't seem to have needed anything when we met, so it might have been something she decided on after meeting us. I couldn't think of anything she might need, but it was possible she didn't go to get something. She might have gone for information on something. If so, why would Chiri keep it a secret?

I stopped pondering that when I arrived at the stream. It was pretty small, but there weren't any rocks to jump across it. Deciding that it couldn't be that deep, I walked through, discovering halfway that yes, it was deceptively deep. I almost panicked when my legs stretched down and didn't touch anything, not sure how to swim as a dog, but before I knew it I was on the other side.

After shaking myself off, and reflecting on the fact that somehow knowing how to do this didn't surprise me anymore, I went about twenty feet further into the forest and found the patch of berries Chiri had mentioned. I went up to it and pulled off a few berries of varying colors, and began to eat them.

Halfway through the small pile of berries, I hesitated. I wasn't quite sure why; it had been more of an unconscious act, and something in me felt like growling. Then I realized I could smell something…burning? I wasn't sure. Now that I was paying attention, I heard a slight crackling as well, from a little behind me. I got up to turn around, tensing up for some reason. Suddenly, I felt the mightyena from my dreams in my mind, growling.

'Move, you idiot!'

I almost froze, but did so on instinct, moving to the side as a yellow and blue blur crashed into the bushes I had just left.

'What was that about?' I asked, getting no response. I couldn't sense anything else in my head now, and a low growling brought me back to the situation at hand. The blur slowly stepped out of the bushes, blue fur raised. I growled as well as I backed up a little bit, looking it over. It was a dog, with alternately dark and light blue fur and yellow rings on its front legs, its tail swishing back and forth angrily. When it came all the way out of the bushes, I realized I could see its ribs through its skin. Its fur seemed to be sparking, which would explain the sound and noise I had heard earlier.

"Sorry to do this to another dog, but, well, you know how it is when you get hungry," it said, licking its lips in what I prayed to Arceus was nervousness. I circled as well, feeling my heart speed up in fear. I considered howling, hoping Chiri would come to help, but I didn't know who else was around. It could end up five against two, for all I knew. It knew it would be best to keep this one on one, but that didn't stop a slight tremble as I realized this would be my first solo fight. The luxio, as I remembered it was called, laughed and stopped circling, its sparks becoming more visible.

"Scared? Just stay still and it'll be over in moments."

I didn't bother responding; I didn't think I could get any noise out of my dry mouth, and I started looking around for a way out of this. Only then did I realize that I had my back to the bushes. The luxio crouched, then dashed forward with a snarl. I somehow stumbled to the side and ran past it, feeling a jolt in my back as a paw ran through my fur. I ran as fast as I could towards the stream as the luxio called out "coward!"

Within moments, the stream came in view. I ran across, luckily finding a spot shallow enough that I didn't have to swim. A few moments later, I heard splashing, a yelp, and a large zap. I filed away the information that luxio were not shock-proof and kept running, darting behind a tree when I felt I had gotten far enough away. I stayed there, panting, hoping that I had somehow lost the luxio, but then the luxio came running through as well.

"Get back here," he cried as he ran past the tree I was hiding behind, both of us still dripping wet. A few feet later, he slowed, and then stopped with his nose up, smelling the air. He turned around and walked back as I pressed myself against the tree and held my breath, hoping he wouldn't see me. He turned around, with his back to me, and I decided to take a risk. I slowly moved from behind the tree, careful not to make any noise, and then ran towards him. He noticed me at the last minute, and his fur started crackling again as he turned, but not fast enough to stop me from colliding with him. The jolt hurt a lot more than I thought it would, making me yelp in pain as we both went sprawling in the dirt. The luxio seemed to be affected as well, as he was slower than I was to get up. He snarled and stalked towards me as I backed up; running was a much better idea than attacking.

"I'll skin you alive for that you little-"

He was interrupted by a white blur – I was getting a little tired of blurs at this point – that smashed into his muzzle, sending him down to the ground for the second time, before arcing back around to Maria. She caught her bone with one hand before stepping in between the two of us, glaring at the luxio.

"If you really want a fight, you can take me on. Otherwise, you'd better get out of here," she stated calmly, holding her bone in front of her. The luxio growled and muttered something, but backed a few feet away before turning and leaving. Maria and I stayed put until the sound of crunching leaves faded, then she relaxed.

"Thanks," I gasped, still tense from the adrenaline rushing through me.

"It's not a good idea to go out alone," she replied in an even tone, still looking towards the direction the luxio had disappeared in. "You obviously realize that now, but you should think about these things before doing them. Now, did you notice anything during that fight? Anything you can learn from?"

"That I need to learn how to fight," I joked, the tension in my limbs finally dissipating. Maria simply turned to look me in the eye, her expression hidden by her mask.

"And what do you need to learn? What did you struggle with?"

"Um… how to attack? It didn't do much when I simply rammed him, and I really couldn't do much else."

She sighed, her helmet shaking a little as she did so, and began walking back, not towards where Chiri was, but in the direction I had just come from. I hadn't noticed earlier, but she had a small bag strapped to her back. Confused, I followed her until we stopped near the berry bushes. She walked over to where I had stood, looked around, then went to a break in the bushes where the luxio had first leaped from.

"You noticed him as he snuck up, which was a good thing, but you didn't realize that what you sensed was a threat until the last moment. After you dodged the initial attack, you were in a safe position, with the luxio mostly cornered. However, you allowed the luxio to maneuver you so that your back was to the bushes. You did not attack on your own, or at all here, but simply reacted to what your opponent was doing. This can be useful if you do it correctly, but for now, do not allow your opponent to decide the factors and flow of the battle."

"How do you know that?" I interrupted when Maria paused. Yes, there were a few prints, but nowhere near enough to reconstruct the fight to that much detail. She gave a small laugh, and pointed to the left with her bone.

"I was coming from right over there, and saw you dodge the luxio."

"You… you saw this happening? And you let me fight on my own?" I asked, unable to stop a small growl from rising in my throat as I continued. "Why didn't you do anything?"

She shrugged. "I was going to, but by the time I got close enough, you had already started running. It seemed like you had a plan, and I wanted to see what you came up with. You have the same problem as Chiri; once you have an opponent, you get this mindset that all that matters is beating that opponent, and ignore everything around you that doesn't relate to that. I was close by from that point on; nothing was going to happen to you unless you did something stupid."

"Still, that was dangerous! I could have been killed, even if you were right there!"

"No, you wouldn't have. Trust me, I thought about every turn that fight could take, and I stepped in as soon as you were in danger of being killed. I won't baby you through this; you need to learn how to fight in a real battle with real stakes. Nothing else can prepare you for that."

I growled a little, but didn't argue more. She wasn't going to budge, and while I didn't like what she did, I didn't see any way to change it. Besides, the buzz I had gotten earlier had just completely left me, leaving me feeling weak. When I didn't say anything, she put her bone on her shoulder and started walking again, this time back towards Chiri.

"Come on. We don't know if anyone else is around, or if he's planning to try again."

I grudgingly got up and followed her, making sure not to fall behind by any large distance. As we walked, I noticed the forest was lit up by the still-rising sun, but there were still dark shadows present along the path. With a small, nervous, laugh, I realized how similar it really was to what Maria did last night.


	9. Training Grounds

A few minutes later, I trudged into the clearing behind Maria. We hadn't run into anything else on our way back; no pokémon seemed to be around except a few we saw at a large distance. I lay down on the edge of the shade provided by the trees before calling out to Chiri.

"Chiri, we're back!"

"We? Oh, hi – Maria! What did you do to Will?"

I picked myself up off the ground, wondering what was wrong as Chiri hurried over. Maria turned and looked me over before looking away again.

"How do you suggest I scratched and singed him with a club?"

"Sorry. But if it wasn't you, who was it?" Apparently not caring what the answer to her question was yet, she began examining something on my back. No matter how far I turned my head, I couldn't tell what she was looking at. "It's mostly just singed fur, and there's not much I can do about that – Will, stop turning around. It doesn't look like there's any damage done. Does anything hurt?"

"No, I didn't even know anything was there," I replied, still curious as to what had happened to my back. "Why? How bad is it?"

"It's not all that bad. It didn't go much deeper than the fur, so you're fine." She floated back in front of me and gave me a reassuring smile. "So, what happened out there anyway?"

"Will almost became a Luxio's snack," Maria stated flatly. There was a moment's silence before Chiri split the air with a shrill "What!"

I cringed and resisted the urge to cover my ears. "Ow! Chiri, sensitive ears here."

She immediately pulled back a little and lowered her voice, an apologetic look on her face. "Sorry! I was surprised by – well, what exactly happened?"

I glanced over at Maria, but she was staring at something in the dirt in front of her. Sighing, I turned back to Chiri.

"While I was eating, a Luxio snuck up on me and ambushed me. I ran away, but he followed me and we ended up fighting. I was losing until Maria stepped in and ended the fight."

"So, it was hunting you?" Chiri asked, surprisingly, in an angry tone. I simply nodded in response, then she whirled to face Maria.

"And you knew about this?" she asked, her voice rising as she continued. "You did! You mentioned it yesterday! Why did you say to go here if you knew there were hunters here?"

That got my attention. I straightened up and looked at Maria, who was still looking at something in the dirt, her bone by her side. After a moment, she sighed, picked up her bone, and got up. She walked over to us before responding.

"Yes, I knew there were hunters in nearby areas. I came through this area about a year ago, and found out which areas were safer than the others. This was one of those areas. Evidently, it is not anymore, and had I known, I would have said something. I didn't mean to put you both in danger. Happy?" Maria simply stood there, tapping her bone on her shoulder and staring at Chiri until she responded.

Now calmer and a bit subdued, Chiri said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult you. I just got angry about what happened. Apology accepted?"

Maria inclined her head before giving a small, almost imperceptible nod, and then slid the bag off of her back. "Since all three of us are here now, it would be best to move on to the reason I left. Will, this is for you," she announced, pulling a purple and silver disk out of her bag. Chiri also chimed in with a small "surprise!" as I looked at it.

"What is it?"

"It's a TM," Chiri explained. "People make them, and they use them to teach pokémon."

"I know what it is," I interrupted, hoping I didn't sound too rude. "I meant, what move is it?"

"Why don't you see for yourself," Maria said as she put the disk on my forehead. "Try not to flinch."

Immediately wary, I asked, "Flinch? Why –"

Suddenly, there was a _click_ that seemed to echo through my body, and the field, Chiri, and Maria vanished. There was a gust of something, a dark purple that swirled by me for a second, and then my eyes refocused on reality. Maria was placing a silver disk back into her pack, and Chiri was peering into my face from a very short distance away. When she saw my eyes refocus, she smiled.

"You okay, Will? Learning your first TM is always a bit of a shock. Sorry we didn't give you much warning."

"Yeah, I'm fine," I managed to mumble before shaking my head to clear it.

Maria turned and started walking back to the patch of dirt she had been staring at previously. "Well, Chiri, I've never used anything like that before, so you're teaching him how to use it."

"Nobody's told me yet what that even was," I pointed out.

"Have you heard of a move called Shadow Ball?" Chiri asked. I nodded my head.

"Well, that's good; I'll just go over the basics. Shadow Ball is, obviously, a ball of energy. That energy is taken from the environment around you as well as from your body, but you don't need to worry about it exhausting you. At least, not in the way you think of exhaustion. Within each pokémon, there are two types of energy: physical energy, or the kind you use to run and move, and special energy. That is the kind Shadow Ball uses."

"So the first thing I will learn is how to use that energy?" I guessed. Chiri shook her head.

"No, that's not entirely possible. That would be like learning how to use physical energy instead of learning how to walk. How to use it was already coded into your instincts by the TM, the only step is figuring out how to trigger it. The reason I told you that was to let you know that the energy is limited and you can only do so much before it simply refuses to come. It will regenerate over time, just like physical energy, but you can still exhaust it."

Chiri moved back a little bit, looking me over intently. I had the feeling that if I wasn't a dark-type, she would be probing my mind for something.

"How did you use Fire Fang?" she asked suddenly.

"What?" I asked, surprised by her question.

"Fire Fang, the one where flames come out of your mouth. How do you use it?" she asked again.

"I don't really know," I confessed. "The first few times, I just got angry, and my chest felt like it was burning. Then, the fire came up into my mouth. After that, I just did it on reflex."

Chiri nodded. "Anger, so that's an emotional trigger. Good, you were able to control it after just a few tries. I'd guess there is a similar trigger for Shadow Ball now. We just need to figure out what it is and have you do it a few times. I wonder what emotion a ghost is," she wondered aloud. "It wouldn't be anger, and I'm guessing it wouldn't be a positive emotion either. Arrogance, maybe? What do you associate with ghosts?"

"I don't know, I haven't met any, just heard about them. Creepy? Um, they take pleasure from pain? Restless?" I ventured. Chiri nodded.

"That might be it. A restlessness, disturbed by something, agitation. That could work."

"So, how am I going to do that?" I asked.

Chiri thought for a moment before sighing. "I have no idea."

"I have an idea."

Chiri and I both jumped as we realized Maria was standing just a few feet away.

"Come over here," she said, and walked towards the rock pile at the edge of the clearing. I followed her, and Chiri came a moment later. She stopped less than a foot from the rock, and turned to face us.

"If you want to be agitated, then the best way to do that is to follow a series of questions. You can tell the truth or lie through your teeth, so long as you give an answer to each one. Quickly, without thinking it over. Sound good?"

"Um… okay, I'll try it," I said, sitting down. Chiri wordlessly backed up a foot.

"Let's start with the obvious. Why are you traveling?"

"To escape from the people who were after me."

"Why were they after you?"

"They were trying to catch me."

"Why were they trying to catch you?"

"I don't know. To experiment on me?"

"Why would you think that?"

"They did that before."

"You were captured before?"

"Yes."

"They experimented on you?" Her eyes seemed to bore into mine.

"Yes."

"What was it like?" After a moment, she said "No hesitating!"

"Terrifying!" I blurted out.

"Did you have a family before this?" Behind me, I heard Chiri start to say something, but she stopped herself.

"Yes."

"Do you miss them?"

"Yes."

"Do they miss you? Do they know what happened to you?"

"Yes, they do. No, they don't know." I wasn't sure at what point I had stood back up, but I was standing now.

"Have you made any effort to let them know?"

That one hurt. "I – I don't know where they – no, I haven't."

"Why not?"

"I don't know where they are."

"Are you keeping secrets?"

"Yes." As soon as I said that, I felt something hit me as I realized what was coming next.

"What secrets?"

"I – I-" I froze. Suddenly, something seemed to bubble up inside me, and I felt something cool in my mouth. Maria moved aside, and something pushed against the roof of my mouth, forcing my head back. Purple, slightly transparent streams of energy shot upwards from my mouth and seemed to hit the rock, but didn't leave any visible mark. Maria moved back into my field of vision, and Chiri moved forward as well.

"Isn't it supposed to at least make a mark?" Maria asked, looking up at the rock.

"No, it goes right through," Chiri said. "It _is_ a ghost move, after all."

"Huh." Maria stared up at the rock wall for a few more moments before turning back to face Chiri. "Well, either way, I know it wasn't supposed to look like that. I assume you know why?"

"Yeah, isn't it supposed to look like, well, a ball?" I interjected.

Chiri bobbed up and down. "Yeah it is, and I know what happened."

Maria nodded, and then walked back to where she had been previously. Chiri watched her, as if expecting her to say something, but she remained silent. After a few moments she turned back to me. Throughout the exchange, I had remained mostly still, waiting as the bubbling in my stomach died down and went away.

"So, what did it feel like?" Chiri asked.

"It was weird. I felt something bubble in my stomach, then something cold in my mouth. It didn't move in between – the bubbling didn't go away. It just came out."

Chiri started floating side to side a little. "So, do you have any guesses why it went wrong?" I shook my head. "It came loose too early. You need to control it, and the first step in that would be not letting it move you around. Try it again, try to get that same emotion, but this time keep your head level."

Once she finished, she went back around behind me, and I was facing the rock wall again. I sat there for a moment, expecting it to come, but it didn't.

"You have to feel the emotion again. Try thinking about the last few questions Maria asked again, and answer her in your head," Chiri suggested.

I did that, and when it didn't work, I started again from the beginning. Halfway through, I felt the bubbling rise in my stomach again. The pressure on the roof of my mouth came back as well, but instead of letting it push my head up I kept my mouth pointed straight at the rock. After a moment, the pressure went away, and something cool filled my mouth, nearly gagging me.

"Spit it out!" Chiri yelled from beside me, looking on with concern written on her face. I'm not sure exactly what I did, but I spat it out and it flew, a perfect sphere colored a dark purple, straight into the rock face. I took in a few deep breaths and let my heart slow down before it registered that I had actually done it. I grinned and turned to Chiri, who smiled back at me.

"Good job, Will! Let's just do it a few more times to make sure you've got the hang of it."

I nodded and turned back to the rock, repeating the questions Maria asked me. Each time, it took less and less emotion and time to do until I was able to let off a few in rapid succession at a moment's notice. Granted, a few of them were so weak that they fizzled out and dissipated into the air within a second, but it was progress. So, I was very satisfied if panting and out of breath as Chiri and I ate. It had taken more time than I thought; the sun was already beginning to set over the tree line, coloring the clouds a bright orange and purple. As an afterthought, Chiri grabbed a few extra berries to take back to Maria, who was still making marks in the dirt for whatever reason.

"We brought some food for you," Chiri sang out as we came back into the clearing. Maria didn't even look up.

"Thanks, but I'll eat on my own," she replied.

"Aw, come on, you can at least try it," Chiri said, holding the berries up to her. "They taste great."

In response, Maria just tapped the bottom of her helmet. There was no mouth hole there.

"You can just take it off," I suggested, sitting down in front of her. She finally looked up at me, the sun's shadows hiding her eyes.

"I swore never to let anyone see me without this skull on. I will not take it off," she said sternly. I reflexively laid my ears flat on my head; I hadn't expected her to respond hostilely.

"But why would you do that?" I asked, receiving another glare for my question.

"I wear this as a constant reminder that life is neither free nor limitless, and as payment." She looked back down at the markings she had made in the dirt, with no intention of explaining what she meant by payment. Chiri motioned for me to back off, but I pretended not to see her; one way or another, I was going to find this out.

"So you made this mask out of respect?" I asked, lying down in the grass.

"I didn't make it," she replied, back to her normal calm tone. It took a moment for me to realize what the implications of that were.

"So, that's a real skull on your head? Is it – well- your mom's skull?" I asked incredulously. I had heard that cubone and marowak wore skull helmets, but I thought they made them, not that they actually took them from someone's body.

"No, it is not," she replied. I sighed, relieved that I wasn't looking at someone who could – "It was my father's."

I choked on the sigh I had just let out. Maria glanced up at me, then stood up and wiped away the marks in front of her.

"Before you say anything, know that I am not disrespecting him in any way through this. When I am laid in the ground, I expect my children to do the exact same, and look forward to it. Don't say anything about this when you know nothing about it."

After a few seconds, I found my voice and muttered out an apology. She nodded, and seemed to accept it, but didn't move from her spot. A few uncomfortable seconds passed, with Maria staring down at me and me looking anywhere but up at her, trying to think of something to say until Chiri spoke up.

"So, what were you doing all this time here? It looked like you had quite a bit drawn out."

Maria finally turned away from me and looked down at the markings she had just scratched out. "Mapping out the area, figuring out where else we would probably run into trouble. Luxio are rare around here, so I doubt we'll run into him or another one again. We're more likely to come in contact with toxicroak or croagunk, but even they would be rare as long as we stay away from the marshes. We would be most likely to get trouble from the more common pokémon, if any of them interpret us as a threat, and there's no telling who, so it's pointless to try to avoid them."

Chiri started shifting side to side a bit, an act I had quickly learned was just a habit for her, like fidgeting. "Well, that's good. We won't have much trouble then. I think I'd like to meet some of the pokémon around here, actually."

After a moment, Maria nodded. "That may be a good idea, to know someone in the area. Just don't go blindly up to pokémon."

Chiri flicked her tail forwards at the nose of Maria's mask. "You worry too much, we'll be fine. I can tell who's dangerous and who's not."

Maria stiffened for a second, almost imperceptibly, before relaxing. "Just be careful. We probably won't be going anywhere tonight, though, since this is a good spot to rest and it won't be long before the sun sets. Will, as long as we're here we might as well do some more training."

I glanced up at this – during the earlier conversation, I had started to zone out. My lethargy completely disappeared as I saw Maria pointing meaningfully towards the thick forest. "That again? Do we have to do it? There has to be some other way to do this."

Maria shook her head. "This is the fastest way, and honestly, this is something you should have learned as you grew up. You're going to need to be able to use all your senses, and the sooner the better."

"There has to be some better way than a contact game of hide and seek. Isn't training supposed to make me better at fighting?"

Chiri floated in between us, preventing Maria from responding. "Calm down, both of you. Will, I'm sorry to say it, but you do need training in more than how to fight, and Maria, I can see you're trying to help, but it would help if you weren't so adamant about doing it your way."

Chiri glanced at both of us before floating out from between us again. I looked over to Maria to see that she was staring straight at me again. After a few moments, I glanced away without saying anything.

"Fine," she said, and my head shot back up to look at her. "If you want a training match so bad, I'll make you a deal. We can spar a little, and if you're good enough to make two serious hits on me, we won't go into the woods. If you can't, then you go along without complaining. I'll even let you start. Deal?"

I nodded. In the woods, I had trouble finding her, but out in the open she wouldn't be able to hide. Plus, I had a new move to use that kept me out of reach of her bone. I could get two hits easily.

"All right then," she stated, backing up to a few feet away from me and swinging her club experimentally. "Chiri, you say when it's over. Will, start whenever you're ready."

I immediately charged up a Shadow Ball and fired it at Maria. My aim was off, though, and Maria easily sidestepped it without moving towards me, not even glancing at it as it flew by. I briefly wondered why she wasn't coming closer before sending another at her. The bone that suddenly hurtled through the ball took me by surprise, and I just barely managed to flatten myself to the ground as it whooshed over my head. Maria managed to dodge my Shadow Ball yet again, but I smirked as I realized she was now weaponless and still not moving towards me.

I started to summon another one, and then stopped as I realized why she wasn't making a move. That bone was coming back. I flattened myself again, but it hurtled by lower than it had before, and my vision blurred as it made contact with the side of my head, sending me sprawling. I jumped back up, despite the throbbing in the side of my head, but Maria wasn't there anymore. I glanced around in confusion, and then yelped in surprise as I was pushed back down to the ground by something pressing into my back. I struggled, but I couldn't push up enough to get my legs completely underneath me.

"I think this is over," Maria said from behind me. I snarled and struggled more, but after a few moments Chiri agreed with Maria and I gave up. Maria removed her bone from my back, and I stood up, shaking the dirt out of my fur as I did so. Maria looked me over to make sure I was alright, then turned and walked into the woods.

"If it makes a difference, I can tell she really is trying to help you," Chiri stated, hovering to my right. "I'm certain of that."

I just sighed and walked into the woods after Maria. The sun had set a few minutes ago, so while it was still light in the clearing, the forest grew dark very quickly. I took the same winding route through that I had taken yesterday, and by the time I got to Maria, all I could see were vague outlines in the dark.

"Ready?" she asked, tapping her bone on her shoulder. I nodded, and she leapt at me, swinging her bone at my legs. I tried to move away, but her bone clipped my front legs and knocked me down. When I got back up, she was gone again. I growled in annoyance. This was going to be like last night all over again. Remembering her advice from earlier, I closed my eyes and listened. Trying to smell her was futile, as I couldn't distinguish her smell from anything else around me. The forest was mostly silent, since there weren't any other pokémon around, but Maria was silent as well, probably not moving from her hiding spot until I gave her an opportunity. Suddenly, I heard a small thunk from my left, and I immediately opened my eyes and ran in that direction, determined not to let her surprise me. I assumed she was behind one the nearest tree, but when I arrived, there was nobody there. Confused, I glanced around until I heard a small laugh.

"I'm not going to stay in one place all the time. Think about where I'm headed next." I whirled around, trying to find the source of the noise, but didn't move from my spot. As long as I had the tree behind me, she couldn't sneak up on me.

Or, so I thought. After a half minute of waiting, she stepped out from the right side of the tree and swung her bone at me. Surprised at her appearance, I backed up and nearly tripped over a bush. I regained my balance just in time to see her disappear around the tree. I growled and ran after her; I couldn't see her, but I heard the unmistakable sound of bushes rustling as someone went by.

I followed that noise intently for a while, some of the lower bushes scratching at my side as I went past, but the noises stopped shortly before I arrived at a clearing devoid of bushes, without a sign of Maria. I sighed as I walked into the clearing, then grunted as yet again Maria pinned me the same way she had earlier.

"Getting better, but you still need to listen more."

I growled at that. "I'm doing the best I can! What do you expect? I'm listening for everything I can, and it's still not enough."

"I don't expect you to devote yourself entirely to listening; that would actually be worse. I want to you listen and see, and use that to make sense of what's going on around you. Not just to hear, but to know how to react to what you are hearing."

The pressure on my back disappeared, and I got up again. Maria had once again vanished, leaving me to search her out. The training session passed without me coming close to catching her. Half an hour later, she brought it to an end by coming up to me and announcing that it was over. Grateful that it was over with, I laid down and closed my eyes, panting.

"You did better than last night, but you still need to work some more. You're listening, but not thinking ahead to what you can hear will mean. That'll come eventually," she assured me.

"How did I do better? It seemed the same to me," I asked, looking up at her.

"It seemed the same because I dropped fewer hints as to where I was," she answered. "You've already made some improvements from when I met you."

"Whatever," I replied, standing back up. "Ready to head back?"

She shook her head. "You go ahead; I have some things I need to do first. It's that way," she added when I looked about, trying to figure out which way to go.

I shrugged and started walking in the direction she pointed, but stopped as I remembered something from earlier.

"Maria? About that last question you asked…"

"Don't worry about it," she said after I failed to finish my sentence. "Everyone has secrets they don't want to tell. I asked you that to catch you off guard, I don't need to know the answer."

I nodded and continued away from her. If she wanted to stay out here, fine. At that point, all I wanted to do was go back to the clearing and lay down. I could already feel the aches I would have in the morning.


	10. Off to a False Start

I have made a major decision regarding this story. At first I was writing this as something to do just for fun, but now it has an actual direction and purpose beyond the plot, if that makes sense. It will not affect previous chapters much, and you obviously will not notice the difference to future chapters, but it should start to show itself next chapter to anyone who likes looking for deeper meanings. I will not state it until someone guesses it, or until I reach a high point of the story. All I'll say right now is, pay attention to anything that seems off. I apologize for the long wait for a short chapter, but I have been occupied, and this was the best place to cut it off at. I am trying to form a schedule, not just for updating but for writing as well, so future chapters should come at a slightly faster pace.

* * *

"Rise and shine, Will!"

I opened an eye and looked up at Chiri. She was grinning at me, floating a few feet in the air and shifting side to side. A little further away, Maria was occupying herself with dealing a rock glancing blows with her bone, producing a low, rhythmic _tock tock_ noise. I opened both my eyes and looked back up at Chiri, then grimaced. The sun was altogether too bright for my liking.

"Come on, sleepy, you can't lay there all day! We know where we're going now," Chiri announced enthusiastically.

Suddenly interested, I got up and stretched, my body reminding me of what I did last night. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt as much as I expected it to. I could still feel some aches, but they felt like they had somewhat healed overnight. Ignoring that for now, I retreated to the shade of the trees and sat down.

"We're going somewhere?" I yawned, curious as to when this had been decided. Chiri nodded excitedly.

"Yep! Maria and I were talking last night – well, it was more like I was talking and she was making comments – but she knows a place to the east where she thinks we would be able to go. It seemed like a friendly enough place from the way she described it, so we're going there to check it out."

I nodded, still not alert enough to think of more questions. Chiri turned away and floated over to Maria, patiently waiting for her to stop. When she didn't, the chimecho gave a little _chime_ to get her attention. Maria glanced up at her, but otherwise did not acknowledge the interruption.

"What are you doing?" Chiri finally asked when it became clear Maria was not stopping whatever she was doing.

"Strength training," she replied after a few seconds.

"How long is this going to last?"

"Well, I'd like to do this until either there is no more rock or my hands start to ache, but that's unrealistic, so until you two are ready to leave."

True to her word, Maria did not leave her spot until Chiri and I were ready to leave – which for me, consisted of stretching again and finding something to eat. A few minutes later, we were headed south. The spring, as Maria had called it, was to the east, but so was the marsh, and neither Maria nor I was eager to trudge through that, and Chiri had no objection to taking a detour. So, we were circumventing it by going further south.

"So, what's this place that we're headed to?" I asked.

"It's a spring, in the middle of a small hill. The community we're headed for actually lives around that hill. The area is pretty secluded, and very few humans go near there," Maria explained. I nodded; that sounded safe.

_Is that even possible?_ I asked myself. _I'm a human, not a pokémon. I can't go live somewhere. I need to find a way to be human again. But how would I do that? It's not like I can just will myself human again. Besides, how would I say no? They would want to know why, and I can't just tell them I'm not really a pokémon._

"Do you know anyone who lives there?" Chiri asked, bringing me back out of my contemplation.

"Some of them," Maria replied. "I wasn't there long, and I don't even know if any of them would still be there. They were very accepting, so I don't think you need to worry about not fitting in."

Chiri nodded, and we walked in silence for a few more minutes. Chiri started humming something, but just as I was about to ask what it was, Maria spoke up.

"Will, do you know if anyone is around?"

I nodded proudly; this time, I had been paying attention. "Yeah, there is someone nearby. They are… a little forward and a lot to the left," I said, after hesitating to make sure I had the correct direction. Maria nodded.

"Good. We're passing into someone's territory."

"How can you tell?" Chiri asked.

Maria raised her bone and tapped the nearest tree, which I saw had three diagonal scratches in the bark, about half a foot above my head. "Too deep to be accidental, and too smooth to be made during a fight. It's a mark, to signal that we're crossing a line."

"Still, I don't think anyone will give us too much trouble," Chiri interjected. "We are just passing though, and if anyone wants us to leave we will. They might even not have a problem with us being here."

Maria let out a grunt, then turned away from us and continued walking. Chiri and I followed, Chiri chatting about who might be nearby, and me listening along while trying to make sense of the surroundings pounding on my senses. After a few minutes, Maria stopped and tensed, holding her bone tightly, and I stopped as well. Chiri shot me an inquisitive look, but stopped talking when we all heard somebody darting through the bushes.

"Want to introduce yourself?" Chiri called out, after Maria was totally silent. Maria shot her a warning look, but Chiri ignored it, and instead called out to the pokémon again, whom had stopped as well. "It's fine, we're not going to hurt you."

There was silence for a few more moments, and then the pokémon emerged from the undergrowth. It had an orange head with black markings under its eyes, its black nose twitching curiously, and a yellow ring around its neck. As soon as it finished walking out from the bushes, it rose onto its hind paws, revealing a cream-colored underbelly and two short legs, as well as two tails which swished behind it as it cocked its head and examined the three of us. After a few moments passed, Maria visibly relaxed, and almost immediately, the pokémon fell down onto four legs and dashed up to my face, almost touching my nose.

"Hi," it cried in a light, but male voice, "my name's Bisel. I've never seen anything like you around before; you must be from a long ways away. Who are you?"

I blinked and took a step backwards. "My name's Will," I said hesitantly. Bisel resumed standing on his hind legs, and then looked between Chiri and Maria, who was looking him over.

"My name's Chiri, and this is Maria. Do you live around here?" Chiri asked, floating a little forward. Bisel scratched his head, then dashed back off into the bushes.

"Hey, we have visitors!" he called out as he disappeared.

"Who are they?" another voice yelled back.

"A chimecho, a cubone, and a…" Bisel's voice trailed off, then he dashed back into the clearing. "What are you?"

"A poochyena," I replied. Bisel nodded, then turned and ran back.

"I am not a cubone!" Maria yelled after him.

"The last one's a poochyena," Bisel yelled out, apparently missing Maria's correction. Maria grumbled, but didn't bother yelling again.

"What? Bisel, get back here!" the other voice hollered. Maria's gaze swiveled towards me, then she stepped in front of me.

"Will, stay behind me," she growled.

"What? Why?" I asked. Chiri opened her mouth to say something as well, but then paused, and turned towards whoever had yelled. I growled, quickly growing impatient with the silent treatment they were giving me.

"Maria, Chiri, what is going-" I was interrupted as another figure leapt over the bushes. This new arrival was orange as well, but then the similarities to Bisel ended. Its head was mostly bird-like, with small eyes and three large feathers sprouting out of the top, and all of its limbs ended in talons. It took a fighting stance, its legs spread apart and its arms raised level with its neck, and I recognized it as an evolution of one of the Hoenn starters I had learned about in school.

"Leave," the combusken spat out, glaring at either Maria or myself, "none of your kind is welcome here."

Chiri quickly floated in between the three of us. "Calm down, I don't know why you're so hostile but we didn't come here to cause any trouble. We're just passing through."

The combusken leaned back a little and crossed his arms, letting out a small cluck. "You don't expect me to believe that, do you? He's a hunter," he said, pointing at me, "and she's wearing a skull on her head!" he finished, shifting his gaze to Maria. "That's anything but friendly."

I sat back a bit. Up until now, none of the pokémon I had met had treated me differently due to my species. Back when I first met Chiri, she told me that pokémon didn't judge based on species or type, so it was a bit of a shock to be suddenly confronted with it.

"You think I'm a hunter?" I asked incredulously. At the same time, Maria stepped forward and growled low in her throat. The combusken narrowed his eyes and resumed his fighting pose, ignoring Chiri, who had backed out from between the two of them. Any impending conflict was prevented, however, by Bisel running back into the clearing.

"Hey, what's going on here? You met each other? Oh, Ken, mom says she wants you to come back and bring the visitors with you. It's been a while since we had visitors. Want to come visit?" he asked, bounding up to me. I just stuttered, my gaze shifting back and forth between the now livid combusken and Bisel.

"We'd love to!" Chiri exclaimed. Ken scowled, and grabbed Bisel by the ring around his neck.

"Excuse me for a minute," he said, dragging the struggling creature out of view. There were a few moments of hushed discussion that I couldn't quite understand, then Bisel reappeared.

"Ken's okay with it too. Come on, we live this way!"

The three of us looked at each other as Bisel ran away yet again.

"I think we should go," Chiri immediately volunteered.

"My vote is entirely dependent on what Will says," Maria stated.

I glanced back and forth at the two of them. "You're leaving this up to me? Um, I say we… go."

Chiri let out a little chime of excitement, then floated over the bush. I followed after Maria, careful to avoid any branches that swung back into place after she went by. We were greeted on the other side by Ken, whose expression indicated that our invitation was anything but okay with him, but he silently stepped in front of us and started walking after Chiri, who I assumed was following Bisel from her vantage point. She seemed to be carrying on a conversation with him as we walked, with various pieces drifting back to us.

After less than a minute, we arrived at a small clearing, occupied mostly by a large, hollowed-out tree trunk, which had partially fallen into the nearby river. I saw Bisel's two tails disappear inside the trunk as we arrived, and shortly afterwards a larger pokémon emerged. It seemed to be what Bisel would evolve into; its coloration was mostly the same, but instead of a yellow ring around its neck, it had a yellow appendage that wrapped around its neck and down its front like a towel. It walked over to us on its hind legs, its two tails held loosely behind it as it examined us.

"Hi! My name's Chiri, and this is Will and Maria," Chiri introduced herself, pointing to me and Maria with her tail.

The creature nodded before replying. "Name's Fleta. I apologize for Ken's rudeness, but we're not used to seeing folks like you around here. May I ask where you're from?"

"Mount Coronet."

"The northeast," Maria stated. Fleta looked expectantly at me for a second, but I didn't offer any answer. I was ultimately saved from answering by three orange blurs that came squealing out of the tree trunk.

"You were right, it is a black buizel! But it only has one tail," one of the blurs exclaimed when it stopped running and circled me slowly enough for me to see it was the same species as Bisel.

"I never said it was a black buizel, I said it was like a black buizel. It's completely different, it's a…" Bisel trailed off, staring at me. "What did you say you were again?"

"He's a poochyena, dears, and he's not an it. His name is Will," Fleta chided the children.

"So, Will, do you want to play?" the third buizel, which I assumed was their species name, asked me. I glanced towards Maria and Chiri, and Fleta waved a paw at me.

"You can go ahead if you want, but kids, remember not to force him to swim if he doesn't want to. Not everyone enjoys the water as much as you do."

"Well then, come on and play with us," the first buizel said, tugging on my fur. I glanced back at Chiri, who gave me a cheerful smile. With that, I nodded and jogged after Bisel, who had already started to run off.

Ken scowled and started after me, but stopped when Fleta touched him on the shoulder. "Ken, I know you mean well, but you don't need to be so aggressive. I would like to talk to you two as well," she said, looking towards Maria and Chiri. "We have something we need to discuss."


	11. March of the Dead

I hummed softly, doing my best to lessen the loud, discordant notes Maria and Ken's mutual hostility was generating. There was a common tone underneath the asynchronous melodies, but I couldn't identify it nor find a way to bring it further out. I could faintly hear Will's song fading into the distance, speeding up to match the pace of the three buizels, but that tune did not seem likely to help the current situation, and Fleta's calm tune would be nearly impossible to invoke.

"Ken, I know you mean well, but you don't need to be so aggressive." Fleta's voice slid through the tension, immediately diminishing the combusken's music to a low murmur and bringing out the underlying melody I sensed earlier. Maria slowed as well in response, allowing her dominant emotion to become a strong, steady beat. If Fleta's voice alone was enough to calm Ken, then it would be worthwhile to find a similar trigger to help Maria. "I would like to talk to you two as well. We have something we need to discuss," she added, turning to Maria and me.

"What do you want to talk about?" I chimed before the hostility had a chance to grow again.

"Several things, but we don't need to remain standing for all of it", she replied. She turned and bounded back to the tree trunk, and motioned towards a few worn rocks that I assumed had been the site of a few discussions with her young and Ken. True enough, as Ken approached it, followed by Maria and me, he let out a few light notes of remembrance. Fleta and Ken quickly took seats in practiced motions, while Maria simply chose the tallest rock and leaned against it with her bone at her side, eliciting a few high notes from Ken and Fleta. I floated above a low rock, as no matter how I sat, my tail felt uncomfortable. "First off, I can assure you that there will be no hostility towards your presence from me, my brood, or Ken. Right?" she stated, glancing at Ken. He crossed his arms, but nodded, his notes indicating that he would not break that promise.

"I assume what you want from us is a similar promise?" Maria asked. Fleta shook her head, but her music, and especially Ken's, changed immediately to a faster and higher tune, indicating the exact opposite. Maria didn't appear to be fooled either. "I can say that Will is no danger to you. He has shown no predator instincts, nor any indication that he has ever learned to hunt." I nodded in confirmation. There was no way Will would even think of harming anyone here.

Fleta's tune immediately slowed, but Ken's remained constant. "Thank you. I guessed from his age and his company that he would not be dangerous, but it is nice to be assured of that," she replied, her voice lacking an edge that had crept into it during the previous conversation.

"And you, marowak?" Ken asked, immediately bringing to life again the melodies he and Maria had begun with.

"No! Maria wouldn't harm anyone without reason, and I don't know why you think she would," I cried out, repressing the urge to create a calming noise to counter the harsh melody that currently whirled about us. Ken's melody surged at my outburst, but soon lessened to a soft undertone. Maria's changed as well, but not to the steady beat I had anticipated. Instead, her beat remained quick, but without the menacing influence. It seemed more inquisitive than anything else, but I ignored that as she began speaking.

"I will not harm anyone here. However, with your permission," she said, nodding to Fleta, "I would like to challenge Ken to a little spar. Nothing dangerous, just a little challenge to see who is better. I'm sure he would enjoy it," she added when Fleta's tone grew concerned. Ken jumped off his seat excitedly, exclaiming a confirmation before Fleta was able to speak. She glanced at him, and her music softened to a low reluctance.

"If he wants to, then I will allow it. But," she continued, quieting the loud exuberance Ken's melody had shifted to, "I don't want either of you growing too rough, you hear? I don't need any injuries."

"Yes, Fleta!" Ken said, emitting a rapid, bubbly tune as he jumped to the middle of the circle. "Ready, Maria?"

Maria didn't move from her spot, but simply cocked her head at the combusken. "Not here and now, unless you want to accidentally burn your home," she said, causing Ken to take a step back. "I noticed a dirt clearing back the way we came. Also, we should wait for the younger ones to return before fighting."

"Why?" I asked. "It seems like it would be better to have it away from them. I don't think any of them would benefit from seeing you two fight."

"And if they came back in the middle of it?" Maria countered. "It would be better to explain to them what is happening before they see it."

"I suppose that's true," I mused. I still didn't think them seeing it was a good idea, but stumbling upon it would be worse. "I'm just worried about them seeing fighting itself as a good thing."

"I don't think you need to worry about that, Chiri," Fleta said, "I know my kits, and they know that fighting has its place."

Ken returned to his seat on the rock, his melody slowing to become more contemplative. "So, we're going to wait for them to come back before we start?" Maria nodded. The circle grew silent, and Ken's hostility slowly began building again. It wasn't driven by the same intensity as before, but it still threatened to overwhelm him if he continued to dwell on it.

"Fleta, how long have you been living here?"

As soon as we passed into the forest, the buizels sped up, following a slightly beaten path through the lightly forested woods. I broke into a run as well in an attempt to keep up, trying to sort out the noise of the buizel's paws from the sounds made by the nearby river. After a few minutes, I came to a fork in the trail to find Bisel waiting for me, standing up on his hind legs. I slowed to a stop and glanced around, seeing one of the buizels running further down the trail.

"Where did the other two go?" I asked.

"They went to go find Keina," he explained, lowering himself to all four legs and scratching his side. Keina must be one of his siblings, along with…

"Oh yeah, you haven't told me the names of your other siblings yet."

Bisel laughed. "Yeah, guess I forgot that. My sister is Aysa, and my brother's name is Daelus, but sometimes we just call him Dae. Mostly when we're playing. What's your favorite game?"

The question caught me a bit off-guard; did pokémon play the same games as humans? "Uh, tag?

My ears laid themselves flat against my head as Bisel squealed. "Finally, someone else that likes it! The others always want to play find, or pop when Keina's not around, or something else that involves waiting."

Bisel stopped as we heard footsteps coming down the left path. After a moment, one of the buizels that left earlier bounded into our circle.

"Keina's not down there, so she's probably in her normal practice spot."

Bisel nodded, then turned and jogged down the right path. I followed along, jogging to keep up with the second buizel.

"So, what's your name again?" I asked the buizel beside me.

"Aysa. I might change it after I come of age, though."

"Come of age? What do you mean?" I asked, speeding up my pace to stay level with her. Out of the corner of my eye, I was comparing her and Bisel so I could tell the difference later, but other than the less than an inch difference in height and the slightly altered markings, it wasn't easy.

"What, does your species not do that? When we change, we have the option to change our name as well to something else we like more. There's some title for it, but I don't remember it. Aysa's fine, but I want something that sounds better, more smooth and quick. I haven't come up with anything, though."

"Huh, I've never heard of-"

"Found 'em!" Bisel yelled from ahead of us, standing on his hind legs. Aysa quickly ran over to him, and I almost followed her until I saw who Bisel had found. I slid to a stop and stared at the new arrival, and she stared straight back.

"I know you," we both exclaimed simultaneously. Standing just a few feet away from me, her eyes wide as she shuffled her wings a bit, was the torchic we had seen earlier. "Why were you following us?"

The torchic shuffled her wings again before speaking; apparently, she was even more surprised than I was. "I wasn't following you! I was curious, because, well, I never… poochyena aren't common around here," she finally blurted out. Aware of the fact that all three of the buizel were staring at us, I didn't point out that torchic weren't Sinnoh pokémon. I wasn't sure what to say after that, though, so I was grateful when Bisel interrupted us.

"Great, you two know each other. Let's start playing already!"

"Play what exactly?" I asked.

"Let's play it. You called it tag," he added, glancing towards me.

"Alright, but you owe me choice next time," Daelus said. Bisel nodded excitedly, and Aysa voiced her agreement as well. Keina just nodded, still preoccupied with looking me over as I made a point of not staring back at her.

"So, who's it?" Aysa asked.

"I'll do it," I volunteered. Bisel grinned and let a slight shiver run through his body.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Start counting and we'll go!"

Aysa moved to reprimand Bisel for being impatient, but I rolled my eyes and closed them. There was a flurry of sound around me as I started counting; by the time I reached seven, the forest was dead silent again.

The game went rather quickly, and I actually enjoyed it despite being the slowest of the group. Daelus and Aysa took advantage of this to stay away from me, but Keina was only able to outpace me on a straight run, and whenever we had to turn, I caught up. Bisel was always trying out a new plan to be untouchable, but most of them simply ended up with him being it, such as when he decided he could climb a tree. That didn't work out for him, the tree, or Daelus, who happened to be underneath him.

A few hours later, an end was finally called to the game. Aysa and Daelus, whom had been running the entire time, were completely exhausted, and Keina and I were only somewhat better. Bisel was still bouncing about on whatever energy had possessed him during the game, taking a swim in the small stream while the rest of us, except Keina, were content simply to drink from it. Once I had finished drinking, I sat up and watched the two buizel join their brother in the water. One of them would swim down to the bottom of the water, shallow as it was, and then the other two would swim over in quick succession. I was trying to figure out what they were doing when with a shock, I realized Keina had sat down next to me. During the game of it, she had forgotten her previous guarded curiosity towards me, and treated me the same as the buizels.

"So, uh…" I stammered, trying to come up with something that wouldn't sound like I was still wondering what she had been doing a few days ago.

"It's called bubbles," she said. She continued when she glanced at me. "The game they're playing. It's called bubbles. One of them lets out bubbles and the others break them into as many as they can."

"Oh." I nodded and went back to watching the buizels. Now that she had mentioned it, I did see the bubbles coming up.

"What are you doing here?" She asked. Confused, I moved so that I was facing her and didn't have to keep turning my head.

"What do you mean, why am I here? I'm just going through with Chiri and Maria."

"No, that's not what I meant. I-" She glanced over towards the three buizels playing in the water, then turned back. "Are you hungry?"

At this point, I was completely confused. "What? What does that have to do with why I'm here?"

Keina let a small sigh, then turned towards the stream. "Hey Aysa, Dae. Will and I are going to go to the berry patch, we'll meet you back at home." Two of the buizels popped their heads above the water and nodded, then went back under. Keina glanced towards me and turned her head towards the woods pointedly, then ran off. I glanced back at the three buizels, then followed Keina.

"Why am I even doing this?" I asked nobody, but followed the torchic down a small path in the woods. She wasn't in any hurry, so I caught up to her within a few seconds.

"Why are we getting something to eat, and why aren't they coming?" I asked.

"Wait a minute, I'll explain it when we get there."

I reflexively laid my ears against my head, but fell in step behind her. Soon, we reached the path where I had met Keina earlier today. At that point, Keina turned off the path and pushed her way through a bush. I followed, the branches scraping at my side, and emerged into a small clearing. There was a circle of stones dominating the center, and most of the remaining ground had been cleared down to the dirt. Keina had turned around, and was staring at me again, similar to the way she had when I first arrived.

"What was the point of coming here?" I asked, annoyed.

She gave a small start, as if she had been lost in thought. "I, uh, wanted to ask you a few questions without my siblings hearing them. Ken said it wasn't polite and I shouldn't talk about this around them." She took a breath, then blurted out, "are you from Hoenn?"

Completely confused, I sat down. "What? What does that have to do with the buizels?"

Keina sighed. "Please, can you just tell me if you are from Hoenn or not?"

"I'm from Sinnoh."

"Oh." She sighed again, looking down.

"Well?" I prompted after a few seconds.

She shuffled her clawed feet before answering. "Ken told me not to talk about it in front of my siblings because he said it makes me sound ungrateful. I am glad for them, I really am," she added when she glanced up at me. "I do like having them as siblings. But, at times, it just feels wrong, you know? Like, there's so much water here. They like it, but it just feels messed up to me. And I know I'm not from here, I'm from Hoenn. I wanted to know what it was like there, because I hatched here, and Ken hasn't told me much about it, but he told me there were poochyena there, and I was wondering if you were from there. That's why I wanted to talk to you. Sorry to bother you."

A few seconds of silence passed between us, me sitting and just looking at her, her scratching her claws in the dirt. I got up, but I wasn't sure what to do to comfort her, so I just stood there awkwardly.

"Let's head back. There's nothing else we need to do here, and your siblings probably already went back."

She nodded glumly, and I stepped back through the bush, praying to Arceus that I was taking the correct path for once.

* * *

Okay, so I really hate myself right now. This was a hard choice, and I only made it after much thought and advice from SuicidalToeSocks, MouringShade, and FearThePika.

This story is going on an indefinite hiatus. I may pick up updating it again someday, but at this point, I do not see that as very likely. I have all of the chapters that I have published so far saved into my computer, and I have the details of the plot worked out to the grand finale, I just cannot continue to write the story. I apologize profusely to anyone I have kept waiting for the past month and a half looking for an update, but I cannot keep pushing out these chapters.

Please, do not leave a review asking me to continue the story. You will not convince me. It is not that I do not want to write this story – I very much want to continue this, but I do not have the ability to write the story anymore. I have not been able to write the story for a while now. The past two weeks and over ten hours spent produced fewer than fifty words until I finally locked myself in my room, sat down, and didn't let myself leave without forcing out an ending to the chapter that I am still not proud of. It was a great ride while it lasted, and I want to thank all of you, whether you reviewed or favorited or added it to story alerts or did nothing but read it, for supporting me, and I hope that my next attempt at a story, if I do make another one, does not disappoint in this way.

I would especially like to give a large thank you to SuicidalToeSocks. I don't think I have publicly thanked you yet for beta reading this, so I would just like to say now that I have really enjoyed having you as my beta reader, and I looked forward to talking with you every time I sent a chapter to you. Thank you for your praise and your criticism.


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